KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) directed counsel for Rauf Akhtar Farooqi, former chairman of Karachi Port Trust (KPT), who was booked in a case of charges of corruption and abuse of authority for illegally appointing 940 employees in KPT, to complete his arguments on bail petition for next date of hearing.
On October 29, 2018, a two-member bench, headed by Justice Iqbal Kalhoro heard the bail applications.
During the hearing, Rashid A Rizvi, counsel for Muhammad Javed Hanif, completed his arguments in which he said that his client is innocent and till date NAB has not filed single document against him and he never involved in any illegal appointment or embezzlement, therefore, court may grant him bail till final judgment.
After completion of his arguments, court directed counsels for former Chairman of KPT, to complete their arguments on next date of hearing.
According to the NAB officials, Javed Hanif is involved in charges of corruption, corrupt practices and abuse of authority for illegally appointing 940 employees in KPT in connivance with [the MQM’s] Babar Ghauri, the then minister for ports and shipping.
He further argued that the appointments were made in violation of KPT law, rules and regulations “without advertisement of vacancies, competitive process, age criteria medical examination of appointees and in violation of basic formalities”.
A large number of those appointed had a criminal record in serious cases such as “terrorism, premeditated murder and robbery” and that the illegal appointments resulted in losses to the national exchequer to the tune of Rs2.8 billion, NAB said.
