PML-N not in favour of changing 18th Amendment, says Saad Rafique

LAHORE: An accountability court directed star witness of the NAB Qaiser Amin Butt in Paragon Housing scam against Khwaja brothers to appear before the court in person otherwise arrest warrants will be issued for him.

As the hearing commenced Wednesday, Kh Saad Rafique and Kh Salman Rafique marked their attendance before the court. Prosecutor Asim Mumtaz appeared on behalf of the NAB.Imran Safdar Sub-Registrar of Aziz Bhatti Town appeared before the court and submitted record of all registries of Paragon Housing Society. On this, the judge inquired is there any registry in the name of Khwaja brothers. To which Sub-Registrar replied that there was no registry in the name of said accused. The court ordered to make all registries as part of the case record.

Prime witness of NAB Qaiser Amin Butt again didn’t appear before the court. However, Qaiser’s son marked his attendance before the court. The judge ordered Qaiser to appear in person before the court on the next hearing and in case of non-compliance, arrest warrants will be issued for him, the judge added.

It is pertinent to mention that Qaiser Amin Butt has not been appearing before the court since the last many hearings apparently due to health reasons. According to the reference details, Qaiser Amin Butt, the main accused in the Paragon Housing scam, voluntarily disclosed the facts related to the commission of offence and requested for pardon under Section 26 of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 (NAO 1999), which was granted by the competent authority. NAB filed reference against Kh Saad Rafique, Kh Salman Rafique, Nadeem Zia Pirzada, his son Umer Zia and Farhan Ali. The NAB stated in the reference that Saad Rafique, in connivance with his wife Ghazala Saad Rafique, brother Salman Rafique, Qaiser Amin Butt and Nadeem Zia, started a housing project namely Air Avenue, which was an illegal housing society. Later, it was converted into M/s Paragon City (Pvt) Ltd. Saad Rafique and Salman Rafique, in connivance with Nadeem Zia and Qaiser Amin Butt, defrauded a large number of members of the housing society.

Saad opened a company, Executive Builders, in his and his wife’s name, and later converted it into Paragon and withdrew a large amount of money from the account of Executive Builders. The Khwaja brothers embezzled the funds of illegal housing society for personal gains, and collected heavy amounts despite clear directions from the LDA that the society was illegal.

After the hearing, Saad Rafique while talking to media said the PML-N was not in favour of changing the 18th Amendment, adding the government hasn’t contacted the party in this connection. To change the NAB laws is not the only problem of the PML-N, saying that NAB is black law. He said the NAB laws and economy both cannot run together. He said the NAB laws have upset lot of businessmen and civil servants. Businessmen’s grievances, who are in jails due to NAB laws, should be addressed, he added. He said their recent meeting with Chaudhry brothers was not an indication of any change. He said in 18th Amendment, Punjab gave its share to small provinces. Changes in the NAB laws were not linked with 18th Amendment. Constitution is a man made law, if there is any need of change in it, it can be discussed, he concluded.