The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday granted bail to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and former provincial minister Aleem Khan in a case related to accumulation of assets beyond means and possession of offshore companies.
A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Ali Baqar Najafi, approved the bail of the PTI leader against a surety bond of Rs 1 million. The court ordered his release if his custody was not required in any other case.
Over the course of the hearing, the investigation officer submitted details of, what he claimed, “suspicious” bank transactions and investment. He claimed that the accused’s sources of income were disproportionate to his expenses, adding that the PTI leader did not disclose assets worth millions of rupees.
Aleem’s lawyer, however, maintained that the corruption watchdog had failed to prove its charges against his client. He said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested the former minister without any plausible reason, and demanded that he be released on bail.
The NAB had taken the former Punjab senior minister into custody on February 7 after he reportedly failed to satisfy the bureau’s officials about sources of his income in connection with his offshore companies.
Former minister urges NAB to complete its investigations before putting people behind bars
According to the NAB, Aleem being the secretary of Parkview Cooperative Housing Society, member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab and minister for Information Technology, held public office and – during the period – was involved in acts of corruption and corrupt practices by way of accumulating assets beyond known sources of income within Pakistan and outside.
Furthermore, the bureau said the accused established multiple companies with the purpose of real estate business and invested millions of rupees.
He has been accused of buying more than 900 kanals in different villages of Lahore in the name of his company M/s A&A Pvt Ltd, and also paid an advance for purchasing additional 600 kanals. The bureau said the former minister could not account for the sources of the investments.
In 2005 and 2006, apart from inland assets, he established offshore companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United Kingdom (UK), and used them to acquire assets of extensive value, which were beyond his known sources of income, the anti-graft watchdog claimed.
Aleem had applied for bail in the cases, stating that the allegations were completely fabricated and ‘had nothing to do with reality’. On Wednesday, the former minister urged the NAB to first thoroughly carry out investigation into cases and then arrest people if they were found guilty.
Talking to the media after being granted bail, he slammed the bureau’s practice of putting people behind bars before completion of investigation.
The PTI leader said he would have quit politics had he been involved in corruption of a single penny. “If someone metes out injustice to me, Almighty Allah will do justice,” he said.
He said there were certain flaws in the NAB law that needed to be removed, adding that putting someone in jail before investigation was completed was a grave injustice.
The former provincial minister urged the government of his party to look into the NAB law and questioned why the anti-corruption watchdog failed to gather evidence against him over the past 17 months. Aleem said if the bureau could not make out a case against him then why he was kept in prison for 100 days.