Non-compliance: SHC orders removal of secretary, others influencing graft inquiry

Government should stop playing games with the court, warns bench member

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) came down hard on the provincial government on Thursday for their failure to remove the special secretary and two other officials of the irrigation department, who continue to influence an inquiry against them in a Rs7 billion corruption scam, despite the court's directives.

Headed by SHC Chief Justice (CJ) Ahmed Ali M Sheikh, a two-judge bench ordered the provincial chief secretary to ensure Irrigation Special Secretary Ahmed Junaid Memon, Chief Engineer Irshad Memon and Superintendent Engineering Fayyaz were immediately removed from their posts to prevent them from influencing inquiries against them.

This direction came during the hearing of a case relating to alleged corruption of Rs7 billion in a project to strengthen the embankments of three major canals - Rohri, Jamrao and Nara canals - in the province. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) alleged that the development project was approved but never launched and executed. Rather, the officers embezzled the money, causing losses to the national exchequer to the tune of Rs7 billion.

Earlier, an additional advocate-general was ordered to remove the officers from their posts during an inquiry into their alleged involvement in Rs7 billion corruption being investigated by NAB in compliance with the court's orders.

However, an interesting situation was witnessed when a prosecutor for NAB refuted the statement filed by the law officer in court. He pointed out to the bench that no action was taken against Ahmed, Irshad and Fayyaz, whose removal from their posts was ordered by the court so that they might not influence the inquiry against them.

The prosecutor said that these officers were still working on their posts and applying continuous influence to hinder the inquiry against them. Instead, the government transferred some other officers who had no concern with the scam and inquiry, the prosecutor added.



The prosecutor's statement visibly annoyed the bench members, who came down hard on the additional advocate-general for filing such a statement in court.

Addressing the government's law officer, a bench member, Justice Karim Khan Agha, said that the government should stop playing games with the court. He told the law officer that playing such a game with the court could lead to unprecedented and adverse implications.

Chief Justice Sheikh observed that NAB was duty-bound to conduct an inquiry into the matter and no one could hinder them from performing their job. He observed that an impartial inquiry could not be expected until these officers were not removed from their posts.

The prosecutor said the accused include the project director, Ashfaq Noor Memon, Wali Muhammad Naich and others.



The court was told that the NAB team had tried to survey the Rohri Canal to physically inspect whether development work was carried out by the irrigation department but the team was stopped from visiting.

It was alleged that the irrigation department authorities had also released water into the canals to hush up their claims of so-called work on the strengthening the safety embankments.

Taking serious notice of the state of affairs, the bench ordered the chief secretary to ensure the special secretary and other two officials were removed from their current posts at the earliest and till the completion of the inquiry. A compliance report on this order was sought by the next hearing date.

It also directed the irrigation secretary to appear in person on December 7 to answer the court's queries.

Meanwhile, the bench also allowed the NAB officials to conduct a survey of the three canals in question to determine the factual position of the development work carried out under the project, as claimed by the authorities. A report on the survey was also sought.