NAB arrests Sindh local govt secretary, ex-DCO, eight others

KARACHI: The National Accountability Bureau arrested Secretary Local Government Roshan Sheikh and eight other former KMC officials after the Sindh High Court dismissed their pre-arrest bail. They were booked for illegal allotment of 221.55 acres of land in Landhi.

The Secretary Local Government, Roshan Ali Sheikh, ex-DCO Karachi Fazalur Rehman, and former officers of defunct City District Government, Karachi, and Revenue Department, Nadeem Qadir Khokar, Mohammad Waseem, Sabahul Islam, Shahzad Khan, Sohail Yar Khan, Ahmed Ali, Mashkoor Khan and Furrukh Jamal had obtained pre-arrest bail in the NAB reference about the illegal allotment of 276 plots measuring 221.55 acres and had issued illegal challans of 121 plots of 4,000 square yards.

The NAB alleged that the accused caused loss to the national exchequer amounting to Rs.6.22 billion and committed the offence of corruption and corrupt practices. According to the prosecution, the KMC was given 250 acres land in 1960 for shifting wool-washing tanneries on payment of Malkano (govt fee). However, neither the land was utilized for that purpose nor it was incorporated into the village form in the name of KMC, due to non-payment of Malkano.

The NAB alleged that KMC officials from 2008 onward knew that neither wool washing tanneries scheme was established nor the plots were allotted but executed as many as 276 illegal leases from 2008 to 2015 of the said plots.

The defence counsel submitted that his clients were not beneficiaries of the scam as allotments were made before 1993 and the documents were not collected by the investigation officer with malafide intentions. They said that there was a civil dispute between the KMC and the Revenue Department over the title of the land, which was still pending adjudication before the SHC.

Special prosecutor NAB submitted that Roshan Ali Sheikh, being as executive district officer City District Government Karachi and former commissioner Karachi, misused the authority by deliberately issuing misleading reports to secretary Land Utilization Department about the status of the land allotted to KMC in 1960.

The SHC’s division bench, headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha, observed that the record reflected that the land was allotted to KMC in December 1960 for shifting wool washing tanneries from Lyari Quarter, Karachi, on payment of Malkano. The court observed that neither the land was properly leased nor the Malkano was paid and the said land was properly resumed by the Sindh government in 1993, therefore, KMC was not entitled to lease them. The court observed that it found no malafide on the part of NAB officials and the cases of white-collar crimes are complicated and the whole transaction and each component of the scam needs to the viewed completely because in most cases, the offence could not be committed without the active involvement of others in the chain of events which lead to the commission of offence.

The bench observed that a cursory glance of the record shows that all the defendants seeking pre-arrest bail have caused huge loss to the national exchequer in connivance with each other, therefore, pre-arrest bail of petitioners Sabahul Islam, Mohammad Waseem, Roshan Ali Sheikh, Fazalur Rehman, Ahmed Ali, Farrukh Jamal, Naeem Qadir Khokhar and Sohail Yar Khan was recalled and their interim bails were dismissed.

The court, however, granted bail after arrest to three ex-KMC officers Shoukat Hussain Jokhio, Mohammad Shoiab and Saif Abbas on hardship grounds submitting that they were under arrest in the case for the last two years. The court granted them bail subject to furnishing surety in the sum of Rs.2 million each and directed the Ministry of Interior to place their names on the Exit Control List.