KARACHI: A banking court threw out on Friday an application moved by the National Accountability Bureau seeking custody of detained businessman Abdul Ghani Majeed for interrogation in an alleged land encroachment and graft case.

Abdul Ghani Majeed along with his father Anver Majeed, head of the M/s Omni Group and close aide to former president Asif Ali Zardari, has been detained in a case pertaining to alleged fake bank accounts and Rs4.14 billion money laundering.

On Friday, when the matter came up before Judge Tariq Mehmood Khoso, a NAB prosecutor submitted that A. G. Ghani’s custody was required by the federal anti-graft watchdog for interrogation in connection with a reference pertaining to alleged encroachment over the amenity plot of storm-water drain Nehar-i-Khayyam pending trial before the accountability court concerned in Karachi.

Therefore, he asked the judge to issue necessary directives to the prison authorities concerned to hand over the suspect’s custody to the anti-graft watchdog officials so that he could be formally arrested and interrogated in connection with the scam.

However, the judge observed that the matter did not fell within the domain of the banking court to pass any order with regard to hand over custody of the suspect to the NAB and dismissed the application.

According to the NAB, Abbas Ali Agha, one of the directors of the M/s Ocean Private Limited, with the connivance of Manzoor Qadir, alias Manzoor Kaka, the then wanted director general of the Sindh Building Control Authority, is allegedly involved in illegal restoration and encroachment of a 4,000-square-yard plot situated at Nehr-i-Khayyam in Block-5, Clifton.

The watchdog claimed that A. G. Majeed was also involved in the encroachment of the amenity land valued around over Rs2 billion.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2019