Daily Times

An Accountability Court (AC) on Monday reserved its judgment on acquittal pleas of former deputy chairman senate Saleem Mandviwala and others in Kidney Hills corruption reference.

AC-I Judge Muhammad Bashir reserved the decision after listening arguments from both sides at the large. The court also granted one-day exemption from hearing to Saleem Mandviwala on his lawyer’s request.

Co-accused Ijaz Haroon’s lawyer Barrister Qasim Nawaz pleaded that the NAB had leveled baseless allegations against his client. He said that the bureau had alleged his client received an amount worth Rs144.2 million through fake bank accounts.

The lawyer argued that his client had no connection with fake accounts, adding that a receiver was not responsible for such accounts. This land was given to Karachi Cooperative Housing Society in 1954 on lease.

After this, the court reserved the verdict and adjourned hearing of the case till May 19.

Meanwhile, the same court also adjourned hearing on an application of co-accused Tariq Mehmood against freezing of his shares in the above case.

The NAB prosecutor had opposed the acquittal pleas of the accused and argued that there was sufficient evidence against the accused persons.

NAB has nominated Saleem Mandviwala, Nadeem Mandviwala, Ejaz Haroon, Abdul Ghani Majeed and Tariq Mahmood as the accused.

Saleem Mandviwala is alleged to have facilitated Ejaz Haroon in selling government plots to Omni Group’s Abdul Ghani Majeed.

According to the NAB reference, Haroon received huge sums of money from fake accounts in exchange for the plots.

He prepared backdated files of the plots and then Mandviwala assisted him in selling them to Abdul Ghani Majeed.