Daily Times

National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Mondays arrested Local Government Secretary Roshan Ali Sheikh in illegal land allotment case after Sindh High Court (SHC) rejected his bail plea.

During the hearing, Justice Muhammad Karim Khan Agha remarked that the LG secretary and nine others were involved in illegal land allotment and misused their powers as government employees. This has inflicted heavy loss to the national exchequer, he added.

The judge refused to further conduct proceedings on the bail petitions filed by the accused, saying that he had already rejected them and directed the authorities to arrest the LG secretary. Following the orders, a five-member team of NAB arrived at court and detained Roshan Sheikh, who avoided the arrest for four hours by not coming out of the courtroom.

It is to be mentioned here that Roshan Sheikh had requested the court to delay his NAB custody in the case for seven days.

Meanwhile, the accountability court Sukkur on Monday deferred indictment of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Syed Khursheed Shah in assets beyond known sources of income case. AC Judge Farid Anwar Qazi was hearing the case. PPP leader Khursheed Shah and other accused appeared before the court.

During the hearing, NAB’s counsel requested the court to defer the indictment as more evidence has been gathered against Shah and others. Accepting NAB’s request, the court adjourned the hearing of the case till September 8.

Talking to newsmen, Shah said that the NAB has failed to register reference against him despite the passage of 12 months and vowed to fight corruption charges levelled against him.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had also nominated two wives, two sons and son-in-law of Khursheed Shah in the reference.

It is pertinent to mention here that the anti-graft watchdog had filed assets beyond means reference of Rs 1.23 billion against Syed Khursheed Shah and 17 co-accused.

The accountability court had granted bail to Shah in December after the accountability bureau’s delay in filing reference against him. However, the Sindh High Court (SHC) Circuit Bench Sukkur later suspended the accountability court’s orders dated Dec 17 to grant bail to the veteran Peoples Party leader.

Earlier in the month of April, the SHC also rejected the plea filed by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Syed Khursheed Shah, seeking bail in the assets case.

The hearing of rental power reference against former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and others has again been adjourned without proceedings in Accountability Court (AC) .

Being the judge of AC on leave, the hearing on the reference was adjourned till September 10th without proceeding.