NAB files reference against officers involved in illegal land leasing

Begins investigations against Senator Javed Qazi and others

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Rawalpindi on Monday filed a reference against officers and officials involved in the illegal award of lease for Railway Golf Club Lahore in Islamabad's accountability court.

According to NAB, the reference has been filed against accused Senator Javed Ashraf Qazi, who is the former federal minister for communication and railways.

Along with Qazi, General (retd) Saeed-uz-Zafar who is the current Chairman Railways Board, Major General (retd) Hamid Hassan Butt and former general manager of Pakistan Railways Iqbal Samad Khan.

Along with these, Khurshid Ahmed Khan, Brig (retd) Akhtar Ali Baig, Abdul Ghaffar, Ramzan Sheikh and Pervaiz Qureshi are also named in the reference. Sheikh and Qureshi are sponsors of Royal Palm Golf Club.

Around 17 years ago, Pakistan Railways offered the lease of its golf club at Canal Bank, Lahore for 33 years for which a number of firms submitted bids including MAX Corps.



During the bidding process, the lease period was illegally extended from 33 years to 49 years. Moreover, the land offered also increased illegally from 103 acres to 140 acres by demolishing the Railway officer colony.

NAB argued that the 'precious' piece of land of Pakistan Railway was leased out illegally in order to grant illegal benefits to the leaseholder.

According to the NAB investigation, the above mentioned accused persons have committed corruption and opted for corrupt practices through misuse of authority by the illegal award of 29 years.

Thus, those involved caused a loss of approximately Rs2.2 billion to the national exchequer.