KARACHI: The Supreme Court has dismissed an acquittal application filed by the Karachi Development Authority’s (KDA) former additional director, Mumtazul Haq, who is allegedly involved in land grabbing and corruption of Rs500 million.
A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmed, threw out his plea after hearing the arguments of the defence lawyer as well as the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) prosecutor at the SC’s Karachi Registry.
The judges observed that the applicant was facing allegations of being directly involved in corrupt practices. Therefore, the judges observed that the applicant may seek remedy, if any, from the concerned accountability court where graft reference against him was pending, in accordance with the law.
The country’s top anti-graft watchdog had arrested Haq along with ex-planning director Akhlaq Ahmed and ex-assistant director of master plan Munir Ahmed Khan following the cancellation of their bail applications.
According to NAB, the former officials, in collusion with some other persons, had grabbed land reserved for a utilities conduit in Gulistan-e-Jauhar block one. During investigations, it was established that 13 plots, each measuring 293.33 square yards, were illegally carved out from land kept for the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board and K-Electric, the bureau asserted, estimating the total loss to the national exchequer to be around Rs500 million. A total of 22 suspects have been nominated by NAB in this reference.
