KARACHI, Jan 5: The Special Anti-Corruption Judge, Karachi, Syed Gul Munir Shah, on Saturday indicted a former chief of the Karachi Building Control Authority and other KBCA officials in a corruption case.

The accused, Brig (retd) A.S. Nasir, former chief controller of the KBCA; Akhlaq Ahmed, ex-senior building controller; Mumtaz Haider, ex-deputy building controller; Ali Zafar Qadri, ex-senior building controller; Mohammad Faheem, ex-deputy controller; Jafar Imam, ex-assistant deputy controller; Mohiuddin Sharif and Hawa Bahi pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case.

The other accused in the case are Gul Mohammad Khanani, owner of Gul Plaza; Syed Mehmood Ali, senior town building control officer; Abdul Rehman Ansari, district controller of buildings, and Ahsan, assistant controller of buildings, have already been indicted in the case. They had also pleaded not guilty and opted to face the charges.

The judge fixed Feb 9 as the next date of hearing and would summon all prosecution witnesses to appear in court to record their statements in the case on the next hearing.

They were charged under the Pakistan Penal Code’s Sections 161 (public servant taking gratification other than legal remuneration in respect of an official act), 162 (taking gratification, in order, by corrupt or illegal means, to influence public servant), 163 (taking gratification for exercise of personal influence with public servant), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant or by banker, merchant or agent), 419 (punishment for cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471/34 (using as genuine a forged document) read with Section 5(2) of the Provision of Corruption Act, 1947. The charge related to plot PR-I/32, Preedy Quarters, now a big centre of imported items.

The former KBCA chief and four officials of the division concerned were charged with their complicity with the owner in allowing him to use an area reserved for car parking to build shops.

According to the prosecution, the approval that they had given was contrary to the provision of Section 5-C of the Sindh Regularization Control Ordinance, 2002.

They were charged with processing and approving the building plan by employing corrupt means and abusing their position as public servants by illegally favouring the owner allegedly for millions of rupees.

On Sept 22, the court rejected the application of former KBCA chief Brig (Retd) A.S. Nasir for the cancellation of a corruption case against him. The application was moved on June 16, 2007. The judge, after hearing the arguments from both the defence and state counsel, observed that the application was not maintainable.

The accused had filed another such application under Section 249-A of the Criminal Procedure Code (power of magistrate to acquit accused at any stage), which was already rejected on March 17, 2007.

The court observed that the references given in the application were irrelevant and meant only to prolong the matter. It was stated that the application was moved under wrong provisions of the law and, therefore, was rejected.