Lahore court grants pre-arrest bail to PM’s daughter, son-in-law in Saaf Pani Case

LAHORE: An anti-corruption court on Thursday granted interim pre-arrest bail to Rabia Imran and her husband Ali Imran Yousaf in a case linked to alleged irregularities in the Punjab Saaf Pani Company reference.

Both accused appeared before the court, which approved their bail petitions and directed the Anti-Corruption Establishment to submit its response by May 6.

The couple had earlier been declared proclaimed offenders due to their absence from the country. However, a court last week suspended their arrest warrants, allowing them to return and surrender before the law.

The case was subsequently transferred to the anti-corruption court after the accountability court lost jurisdiction following amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance.

According to the allegations, the couple received illegal financial benefits by renting out their private property to the company for use as office premises. Other suspects in the case, including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and several senior bureaucrats, have already been acquitted.

The Saaf Pani case first surfaced in 2017 when the National Accountability Bureau launched a wide-ranging probe into alleged corruption in 56 public-sector companies, including the Saaf Pani Company. Investigators cited violations of procurement rules, nepotism, inflated contracts, and project delays.

The reference alleged that contracts, including one awarded to KSB Pumps for installing water filtration plants, were approved at inflated costs and without proper technical sanction, causing an estimated loss of over Rs345 million to the national exchequer.

Several officials and executives were arrested during the investigation phase between 2018 and 2019, as the probe expanded to include multiple departments and contractors.

Separately, Rabia Imran and Ali Imran Yousaf were also granted interim bail earlier this week in another case related to alleged corruption in the Punjab Power Development Company, further linking them to ongoing accountability proceedings.