Nisar Morai. PHOTO: ONLINE/FILE
Headed by SHC Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M Shaikh, a two-judge bench also rejected the bail plea of former FCS vice-chairperson Sultan Qamar Siddiqui.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officials arrested them outside the court's building as the accused persons voluntarily handed over their custody to the investigators.
The federal anti-graft watchdog had accused Dr Morai, Siddiqui and 10 other officials and contractors of misusing their authority, embezzlement of funds, illegal appointments and awarding fake contracts during 2014-15, causing a loss of over Rs343 million to the national exchequer.
Dr Morai is considered as one of the influential leaders of the PPP in Sindh. He was appointed the chief of the FCS in a controversial manner in January, 2014 and mysteriously disappeared soon after the Rangers had arrested Siddiqui and others in June, 2015.
Later, Siddiqui, along with his brother and another person, was nominated in the Safoora Goth bus carnage case for allegedly providing arms to the assailants. However, a military court acquitted all three of them in the case.
Dr Morai and Siddiqui had filed bail applications with the SHC, denying NAB's allegations. Their lawyers argued that NAB had named them in the graft reference on mala fide grounds and pleaded to the court to grant them bail.
NAB recovered Rs50b
Former information secretary's bail dismissed
Meanwhile, the same bench also dismissed a bail plea filed by former information secretary Zulfiqar Ali Shalwani, who is a co-accused with former information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon in a corruption reference related to Rs5.77 billion government advertisements.
The federal anti-graft watchdog had filed a reference against 17 suspects, including Memon, Shalwani, information department deputy directors Anita Baloch, Mansoor Ahmed Rajput and Mohammed Yousuf Kaboro, Syed Masood Hashmi of Orient Communication, Gulzar Ali and Salman Mansoor of Adarts and Inam Akbar of Evernew Concepts.
It had been alleged that an amount of Rs5.77 billion was paid to seven advertisement companies in violation of the Sindh Public Procurement Rules, 2010. Denying the allegations, Shalwani had applied for pre-arrest bail but the SHC rejected his bail along with others and subsequently, the NAB officials took them into custody following a six-hour game of hide and seek played on the court premises.
Later, Shalwani moved a fresh application from jail seeking post-arrest bail. However, the SHC rejected his new bail plea as well.
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