Khan’s never ending story: Widow moves SC against PML-N lawmaker

Zahida Durrani appears before the apex court, seeks recovery of Rs20 million from Anjum Aqeel Khan.

ISLAMABAD:

Yet another fraud scam against an opposition lawmaker from the capital surfaced on Wednesday, when a widowed former government official appeared before the Supreme Court, seeking Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s help for recovery of over Rs20 million from MNA Anjum Aqeel Khan.

“I am a widow with no source of permanent income. I invested a major chunk of the money I had for two flats in the Khudadad Heights, the housing scheme of Anjum Aqeel Khan in 2004,” Zahida Durrani, 60, said. The reason for this investment was her son, who is deaf and the mother wanted to secure her child’s future.

Narrating her story in front of a three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, which was hearing the case of irregularities in allotment of hundreds of plots in the NPF by the MNA, Durrani said she was living in a rented house in Rawalpindi and had borrowed an amount of Rs2.2 million for the surgery of cochlear implant of his handicapped son. The money, however, remains caught up in Khan’s Khudadad Heights.

The complainant in her application submitted before the court, requested to become a party to the case as she was among the aggrieved. “For years I have been trying to get the possession of the flats, I am among the people he has befooled,” she added.

The court inquired about the National Police Foundation (NPF) chairman but he was not present in the courtroom. Officials of NPF on the other hand, confirmed the scam saying that an FIR had already been filed against MNA Anjum Aqeel Khan in this case.

Durrani informed the court that the PML-N lawmaker floated a scheme in sector E-11 inviting applications for the allotment of flats against payments. “I made the complete payment but the possession of the flat was not given to me by Khan,” she said.  As per the terms of agreement, Durrani said, the flat was to be transferred in her name within three months after December 31, 2006.

But Khan has failed in transferring the flat in the name of the allottee at Khudadad Heights  despite receiving payment.

Durrani said she is also entitled to the market rent of the apartment from April 2007 until now. “Khan has also swindled hundreds of other people,” she alleged.

The allottees of Khudadad Heights, both individually or collectively, approached the MNA and his associates and held dozens of meetings with him during the last five years for the possession of their apartments.

Every time the meetings did not bear any fruit. Many allottees who were handed over the keys of their apartments found them incomplete as a substantial amount of work pertaining to exterior and interior has not yet been completed.

The MNA is currently in jail in a property fraud case. He is also the main accused in the Rs6 billion National Police Foundation scam.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 27^th, 2011.