Housing society scam: LHC allows NAB’s request for early hearing into Aleem Khan’s petition

Court will hear PTI leader’s petition on Wednesday, November 22

ISLAMABAD: Following a request made by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday decided to conduct an early hearing of a petition filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Aleem Khan against the anti-graft watchdog over investigations into affairs of a housing society owned by Aleem.

The petition has been fixed for hearing on Wednesday, November 22. Through this constitutional writ petition, Aleem had managed to obtain a stay order from the LHC on August 15, 2017, against pending NAB investigations into affairs of his housing society, Vision Developers (Pvt) Ltd.

The decision came in the backdrop of fresh drive initiated by the top graft buster against illegal housing schemes in Lahore on the complaints of the general public. As part of the drive, the bureau has also sought details of all illegal housing schemes advertised without obtaining mandatory NOCs from the Land Development Authority, Lahore.



The NAB’s prosecution wing was earlier directed to take up court cases regarding illegal housing schemes in a bid to pave way for smooth investigations against violators. NAB had initiated its probe against Vision Developers (Pvt) Ltd earlier this year.

Aleem is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Park View Villas Housing Scheme located at Multan Road, Lahore. Following a complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), NAB (Lahore) on May 31, 2017, asked the PTI leader to appear before its investigators with relevant record of Park View Villas Housing Scheme on June 6. However, Aleem failed to appear and was later served three follow up notices dated June 8, July 11 and July 27.

But instead of appearing before the anti-graft watchdog, Aleem filed a writ petition against DG NAB Lahore, Chairman SECP and others under Article 199 of the Constitution of Pakistan with a plea that the court restrain the bureau from pursuing the SECP complaint.



The LHC was also requested to suspend all four notices of appearance issued by the NAB. Aleem in his petition said as he was a leader of the PTI so NAB’s action was biased and initiated to politically victimise him. The LHC while suspending all the notices granted a stay in favour of the PTI leader.

It’s worth mentioning that in January 2016 the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan was told by the Employees Old-age Benefits Institution (EOBI) that its former chairman had bought land from Aleem Khan for Rs2.6 billion in Lahore while the current market price was Rs1.01 billion.

The court was told that properties located at Multan Road, Lahore, containing 742 residential plots of different dimension, and 226 commercial plots of four marla each were purchased by EOBI for Rs2,600 million vide agreements dated July 16, 2012, and February 9, 2013, respectively from Vision Developers (Pvt) Ltd. Aleem is one of the two directors of the organisation.



The scheme was not approved by the LDA whereas the LDA vide different advertisements in daily newspapers had warned the general public not to invest in the alleged housing scheme phase-II/extension as it had no approval of the authority.