LAHORE: An accountability court in Lahore on Wednesday acquitted former Lahore Parking Company (LPC) chief Hafiz Mian Nauman in a corruption case against him.
The court also acquitted two other accused, company former managing director Usman Qayyum and former chief operating officer Taseer Ahmad, in the case.
Accountability Judge Amjad Nazir Chaudhry announced the verdict, declaring that the accused neither misused administrative authority nor any proof of their involvement in corruption was found. The verdict was reserved briefly before being announced in an open court today.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had arrested Nauman, a former MPA of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) from Lahore, in November 2018 on charges of corruption. According to the NAB investigation report, Nauman, in his capacity as LPC chief, granted some 200 parking contracts in the provincial capital with most of them going to PML-N workers, however, illegally. These contracts, according to the agency, caused a loss of millions of rupees to the national exchequer.
According to the defense counsel, the Bureau has been investigating the said scam since 2018 however even after the passage of two years, no proof of the accused’s involvement has been found. The counsel subsequently pleaded with the court to acquit the accused under section 265-K of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
However, the anti-graft agency opposed the plea with its prosecutor saying that “sufficient evidence” was available to convict Nauman.
LPC is one of the 56 public-sector private companies formed by former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif mainly to expedite the development work. The companies, which were formed on the pretext of good governance, were under Sharif’s direct supervision.
