Sharjeel Memon’s bail plea dismissed

PPP leader’s request of bail on medical grounds opposed by NAB

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) dismissed on Friday an application seeking post-arrest bail on medical grounds for Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Sharjeel Inam Memon in a case related to alleged corruption of Rs5.77 billion in government advertisements.

A two-judge bench, headed by SHC Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M Sheikh and comprising Justice Karim Khan Agha, pronounced the verdict, also dismissing the bail pleas of five co-accused, who included the former information secretary, former deputy directors and other officials.

The order was earlier reserved on February 23 after hearing arguments from the defence lawyer and National Accountability Bureau's (NAB) special prosecutor.

Memon, a former provincial information minister, was arrested in October last year by federal anti-graft watchdog officials from outside the SHC after his interim bail plea was revoked. The bureau had booked him and 11 others - including the former provincial information secretary, other officials of the information department and heads of different advertisement agencies - for allegedly embezzling Rs5.77 billion.



The money was embezzled purportedly while awarding contracts to seven advertising agencies to run awareness campaigns from 2013 to 2015.

The former minister, the then provincial information secretary, deputy directors of the Sindh information department Mansoor Ahmed Rajput, Mohammed Yousuf Kaboro and others for allegedly committing corruption from 2013 to 2015 in awarding advertisements of the provincial government's awareness campaigns in the electronic media.

In the concluding arguments, lawyers representing the former minister and co-accused, including Gulzar Ali, Salman Mansoor, Sarang Lateef Chandio and Umer Shahzad, had requested the court to grant bail after arrest to their clients. The applicants had denied the allegations of being involved in the scam.

However, the NAB prosecutor had vehemently opposed the plea, arguing that there was no need to shift the PPP leader from the jail to any private hospital, as the prison hospital had all the medical treatment facilities that he needed.