SHC reserves judgment on Memon’s bail plea

NAB prosecutor claims concrete evidence against the accused

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has reserved judgment on bail applications moved by Sindh’s former information minister Sharjeel Memon, chief of Evernew Concepts Inam Akbar and others, accused of misappropriating billions of rupees in various advertising campaign run by the Sindh government.

A two-member bench of the SHC, headed by Justice Junaid Ghaffar, reserved its judgment on Friday in a reference filed against the three by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for an alleged graft of Rs5.76 billion.

In his arguments, NAB prosecutor Altaf Khan told the court that corruption was rampant in Sindh and Memon had arranged payments of billions of rupees in the name of various awareness campaigns from 2013 to 2015.



He alleged that Memon acted in connivance with former secretary Zulfiqar Shalwani, section officer Altaf Memon, director Yousuf Kaboro and deputy directors Mansoor Ahmed Rajput and Aneeta Baloch.

The NAB official told the court that Memon misappropriated money in the name of advertising campaigns for creating awareness about dengue virus, illegal arms and the Sindh Cultural Festival.

The court was told that rules had been violated in award of contracts as advertisements were telecast on the media even before the contracts were awarded, and billions of rupees was received as commission from favourite companies.

According to Altaf Khan, Rs4.154billlion was released to Inam Akbar’s Evernew Concepts Limited. He claimed that concrete proofs were available against Memon, Akbar and others.



He said four of the seven advertising agencies had confessed to the crime and had returned the looted money voluntarily. He requested the court to reject the bail applications of the accused and send them to jail.