The interim reference maintained that the the provincial chief minister issued illegal order in March and October 2014.
PHOTO: EXPRESS
The additional reference was also filed against the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) former director general Ahad Cheema and a senior federal bureaucrat in an accountability court on Saturday.
Other accused persons include Bilal Kidwai, Imtiaz Haider, Kamran Kiyani, Shahid Shafiq Alam Faridi, Shahid Mehmood, Muhammad Sadiq, Munir Zia, Nadeem Zia, Ltd Khalid Hussain and Ali Sajjad.
Out of the 13 accused, Kiyani, Nadeem Zia and Khalid Hussain are at large according to the reference while Shahid Mehmood, Muhammad Sadiq are yet to be arrested and Ali Sajjad is out on bail.
A day earlier when NAB presented Shehbaz in court for judicial remand, the accountability court judge had expressed anger on NAB prosecution on failure to file a reference against Shehbaz. The prosecutor had informed the bench that the bureau shall file the reference within two days.
NAB Chairman Javed Iqbal jhad approved the reference during his visit to NAB Lahore headquarters. According to the reference, the PML-N president is accused of issuing illegal orders to halt bidding process of the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC), which the Punjab government had established for the Ashiana project.
The development company was running the project in December 2013. Shehbaz is also accused of turning the project into public private partnership by bypassing powers of the PLDC boards of directors. Afterwards the project was transferred from the PLDC to the LDA, being headed by Cheema at the time.
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The reference also alleged the former Punjab CM of not awarding the project to the successful bidder but granting it to a company that was not eligible for the project in connivance with Cheema and others.
It alleged the reason behind not awarding the project to a successful bidder but to another company – M/s Casa Developers – was meant to favour the Paragon Housing Society, as the former is a proxy group of the Paragon, which is said to be owned by the PML-N leaders Saad Rafique and his brother.
NAB said this cost millions of rupees loss to the national exchequer as cost of the project escalated due to delay and other expenditures while thousands of people were also deprived of their due right of housing.
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