Ex- housing society head handed five-year jail term in land scam case

In a land scam case pertaining to Hyderabad Railway Employees Cooperative Housing Society (HRECHS), the Hyderabad Accountability Court Hyderabad convicted on Saturday HRECHS former chairperson Matloob Ahmed Khan, sentencing him to five years in jail and imposing a fine of Rs5 million on him.

The court found Matloob guilty of fraudulently inserting a piece of land, consisting of 56 plots, in the society and located on prime commercial road Autobahn, through a fake revised layout plan dated December 15, 1998.

The investigation officer of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) estimated the worth of the land at Rs1.48 billion. However, the NAB recovered only Rs270 million from the beneficiaries of the 54 plots, with each paying Rs5 million under the voluntary return scheme provision to the bureau.

The court, which had earlier acquitted three out of the six accused persons, also exonerated Sindh Cooperative Housing Societies former managing director Naveed Zarar Khan and the society's former administrator Abdul Sattar Laghari.

According to the accountability court's order, the NAB prosecutor failed to establish charges against Naveed and Laghari.

Tampering the plan

Matloob tampered with the layout plan of January 15, 1998, and on December 15, 1998, he got the revised layout plan approved, inserting 56 more plots in HRECHS. The plots were never part of the cooperative society.

The piece of land on which these plots were carved out was only added later under the revised layout plan in the cooperative society. Of some 4.02 acres of land on which the plots were located, 2.38 acres belonged to the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation- earlier called Taluka Municipal Administration (TMA) Latifabad- and 1.4 acres to the Pakistan Railways. However, the land in question is under litigation in the civil court.

The HRECHS was originally allotted 10.02 acres of land. However, a deceased tapedar and a deceased mukhtiarkar showed 19.34 acres of land under ownership of the society in the record of rights by means of forgery. The land is located in Deh Giddu.

The trial

Advocate Riazat Ali Sahar, who represented Matloob in the trial, argued that his client never prepared or got a forged revised layout plan approved. He said Matloob subleased the plots in question on the directions of HRECHS secretary M Usman, who was never nominated as an accused in the said case.

Laghari's counsel, Advocate Sajjad Ahmed Chandio, argued that his client never authorised subleasing the plots, and pointed out that a letter in this regard was also not sent to any relevant department. He also referred to the prosecution witness, Latifabad sub-registrar Ramesh Kumar, who gave a statement in the court saying that the plots were subleased not on Laghari's directives but on the directions of the Sindh government additional secretary via a letter dated August 9, 2010.

In this regard, the court order read,"… prosecution hasn't been able to prove the charge against him [Laghari] and case against him appears to be highly doubtful."

The Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) suspended the revised layout plan of HRECHS on January 2, 2014.

Later, the HDA cancelled the plot numbers 1 to 26, measuring 300 square yards, and 27 to 56, measuring 240 sq yds, on January 28, 2014.

The accountability court convicted Matloob under Section 10 of National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 read with section 265-H (ii) of CrPC.

He has been handed a five-year jail term and a fine of Rs5 million has been imposed on him.

The court observed that in view of his old age, a lenient punishment has been pronounced on the convict.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2021.