LAHORE: An accountability court in Lahore on Thursday adjourned the hearing in the Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme case till June 16 due to a strike of the Lahore Bar Association (LBC).
Accountability court Judge Amjad Nazir Chaudhry conducted the proceedings, wherein jail authorities produced former Lahore Development Authority director general Ahad Cheema.
Former principal secretary to prime minister Fawad Hassan Fawad and a petitioner on behalf of PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif also appeared before the court.
The petitioner, Advocate Muhammad Nawaz, told the court that the lawyers were not appearing before the court due to a strike call given by lawyers’ body.
The court had indicted 13 accused including Shehbaz Sharif in the case. Sharif and Fawad had later obtained bails from the Lahore High Court (LHC).
THE CASE:
National Assembly Opposition Leader Shahbaz Sharif is accused of ordering the cancellation of a contract given to successful bidder Chaudhry Latif and Sons for the housing scheme, which led to the subsequent award of the contract to Lahore Casa Developers, a proxy group of Paragon City (Pvt) Ltd., resulting in a loss of Rs193 million.
He is also accused of directing the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) to assign the Ashiana-i-Iqbal project to LDA, which awarded the contract to Lahore Casa Developers, causing a loss of Rs715m and the ultimate failure of the project.
NAB has also accused Sharif of directing the PLDC to award the consultancy services contract for the project to Engineering Consultancy Services Punjab for Rs192m, while the actual cost was supposed to be Rs35m as quoted by Nespak, a renowned engineering consultancy.
According to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Fawad, while serving as implementation secretary to the Punjab chief minister in the housing project, had misused his authority.
Multiple reports claim that Fawad had issued illegal orders to PLDC chief Tahir Khursheed to suspend the award of contract for the housing project to Chaudhry Latif and Sons.
The contract had been legally awarded to Chaudhry Latif and Sons but it was illegally suspended after eight months, reports suggest.
An inquiry under the supervision of then finance secretary Tariq Bajwa to investigate the contract had declared the process legal and in the spirit of PPRA rules. However, Fawad allegedly shelved the inquiry report and did not inform the authorities about it.
Chaudhry Latif and Sons were given Rs70 million as a mobilisation advance and begun work on the project. The government later had to pay an additional Rs5.9m to the company due to the illegal suspension of the contract.
The NAB investigator had said that the illegal steps taken by Fawad had not only caused an inordinate delay in the execution of the project but also resulted in a considerable project cost hike.
Cheema, according to the anti-graft agency, was heading two power companies in Punjab prior to his arrest. The grade-19 PAS officer is accused of misusing his authority to award the 14-billion-rupee contract to a favored development firm.
Othe people arrested in the case include Bilal Qidwani, Imtiaz Haider, Shahid Shafiq, Sardar Saeed and Arif Butt. Saeed and Butt are currently out on bail.
