Land scam: DHA City prime suspect’s bail plea dismissed

Court says plea is not maintainable at a stage when the case is under investigation

LAHORE: A Lahore High Court division bench on Tuesday dismissed as non-maintainable a petition filed against the arrest and physical remand of Globaco (Pvt) Limited chief executive officer Hammad Arshad in the Rs15 billion DHA City case.

The bench headed by Justice Tariq Abbasi observed that investigation of the case was in progress and the petition was not maintainable at this stage.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is investigating Arshad over charges of corruption and cheating the public.

Earlier, petitioner’s counsel Advocate Azam Nazir Tarar and Advocate Zahid Hamid submitted that the NAB had arrested their client in violation of a stay order. They said a high court had stopped the NAB from taking such an action against the petitioner. They said Arshad had been appearing before the NAB regularly. The NAB had concealed facts in its petition seeking Arshad’s physical remand from a trial court. The counsel asked the bench to suspend the physical remand and order their client’s release from NAB custody.

Appearing on behalf of the NAB, Khaliquz Zaman submitted that the petitioner was arrested with the permission of the trial court. He said releasing the petitioner on bail would be unfair to hundreds of families whose hard-earned money was swindled by his company.  The bench dismissed the petition after hearing the arguments.

Meanwhile, an accountability court extended Arshad’s physical remand for 12 more days. The court directed the NAB to produce the suspect again on February 6.

In a reference against him, the suspect has been accused of swindling Rs15.47 billion from hundreds of customers who were issued plot allotment letters while his company was yet to acquire land for the purpose.

The reference stated that Arshad’s company had secured a contract from DHA-EME in 2009 to acquire 25,000 kanals land for the establishment of a housing project called DHA City. However, it failed to acquire land for the purpose but still issued allotment letters for plots costing Rs15.47 billion. It said that the suspect had transferred the money to his personal accounts.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2016.