KARACHI: An anti-corruption court indicted the former director general of the Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) Wahid Khursheed Kunwar, former head of the EOBI investment committee and caretaker minister in Sindh, Iqbal Dawood Pakwala, Colonel (retd) Ali Asad Mirza, his wife Nighat and daughter Maham, in a land scam case on Wednesday.
The judge of the Special Federal Anti-Corruption Court Central-II, Tasneem Sultana, indicted the suspects on corruption charges after they were produced before the court. The suspects, however, pleaded not guilty and opted for a trial.
Following the indictment, the court directed the prosecution and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to present its case through witnesses and evidence.
The suspects have been booked for their alleged involvement in the purchase of a four-acre disputed piece of land in 2011-12 near the airport on a hefty payment that caused huge financial losses to the national exchequer.
According to the FIR, the EOBI top management purchased the land from Nighat Mirza and Maham Najeeb at an exorbitant rate, whereas the actual rate of the land was much lower.
The FIR further stated that the former head of the EOBI investment committee and the caretaker minister in Sindh, Iqbal Dawood Pakwala, had presided over the investment committee’s 190th meeting in December 2011 as conveyor of the Sindh employers’ representative. The meeting gave approval for the piece of land.
EOBI Chairperson Zafar Iqbal Gondal, employer’s Balochistan representative, Malik Mehfooz, and the investment director-general, Wahid Khursheed Kunwar, had attended the meeting and all had unanimously agreed to purchase the piece of land at higher rates than the evaluated value, stated the FIR.
In the interim charge sheet submitted before the court, the FIA had listed 21 prosecution witnesses and declared Gondal and another man, Qasim Prevez, as absconders.
A case was registered under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker merchant or agent), 419 (punishment for cheating by presentation), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act-II, 1947, at the FIA Commercial Banking Circle, Karachi.
The court adjourned the hearing of the case till October 8.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 3rd, 2013.
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