Pension scam: Former GPO clerk challenges sentence at PHC

Requests court to approve bail plea on maternal grounds.

PESHAWAR: A former General Post Office clerk, who was handed 12 years in the slammer and over Rs30 million in fines, challenged her conviction and filed a bail plea at the Peshawar High Court on Wednesday.

Nuzhat Begum requested the court to approve her bail, saying she has a three-year-old daughter living with her at Central Prison Peshawar.

Assistant superintendent Zahir Shah produced Nuzhat and her daughter before the court. During the proceedings, a division bench comprising Justice Asadullah Khan Chamkani and Justice Lal Jan Khattak issued notices to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), asking it to submit a report within a day. The hearing was adjourned till Thursday (today).

On March 30, an accountability court had convicted two GPO clerks in a retired servicemen’s pension embezzlement case. Judge Zarqaish Sani sentenced them in two different references, worth Rs49.5 million and Rs12.1 million respectively, filed by NAB. Four other accused were acquitted due to the non-availability of evidence against them.

NAB had acted upon multiple complaints against the accused and arrested female wing clerk Nuzhat, male wing clerk Noor Shad, Umer Daraz, Sultan Hussain and Asmatullah in 2006.

During the course of enquiry it was revealed the officials had withdrawn pensions in the name of ghost servicemen and transferred the sums into their personal accounts.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2015.