Court order: NAB to file reply on Siddique Memon’s travel plea

Former chief secretary is being investigated in an illegal land allotment case

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) sought on Monday a reply from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) authorities on the former provincial chief secretary's application seeking permission to travel abroad.

A division bench, headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, directed NAB's special prosecutor to file a reply by January 16, 2017. The former top provincial bureaucrat, Muhammad Siddique Memon, is currently on bail in a case regarding alleged illegal regularisation and allotment of land. Memon moved the court in August last year against a call-up notice by the bureau, calling him for questioning in relation to land in Karachi's Scheme 33. He claimed that neither had he allotted such land nor had he regularised it.

"Therefore, the notice from NAB is malafide and interfering in the smooth functioning of the Sindh government," he had argued in his bail plea.

In the bail plea, Memon maintained that the call-up notice is 'illegal' and 'unconstitutional', since he has no role in the commission of the alleged offence. Therefore, he had sought bail before arrest to enable him to appear before NAB for questioning. Previously, the SHC had granted him interim pre-arrest bail against a surety of Rs500,000.

During Monday's proceedings, the judges were informed that the petitioner wanted to travel abroad for 45 days. Therefore, the court was pleaded to grant him permission to travel.

The court directed the NAB's special prosecutor to file reply to the application by January 16.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2016.