ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday hinted at summoning the National Accountability Bureau chairman to explain why NAB had discriminated by arresting only four accused out of a total of 25 in a corruption reference when the principal beneficiaries were still at liberty.

The observation came during the hearing of an appeal against their arrest filed by Dinshaw Hoshang Anklesaria and Jamil Ahmed Baloch, who are facing corruption charges in the Bahria Icon Towers case.

The Supreme Court bench that had taken up the appeal comprised Justice Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi.

Anklesaria has been involved in construction and real estate business since the 1980s and has never been convicted in the past.

Court resents detention of only four out of 25 accused in Karachi land case

The SC bench warned that if NAB failed to come up with a justification to clarify the ambiguity, its chairman would be asked to appear before the court in person. The court asked NAB to proceed against the accused in a transparent manner without showing any discrimination.

“It is the basic responsibility of the Supreme Court to safeguard and ensure the civil rights as well as the fundamental rights of the citizens of the country,” the bench observed.

The court regretted that despite earlier directives, NAB failed to justify the arrest of four out of 25 accused.

At the last hearing on Dec 9, the court wondered why NAB had distinguished the cases of the petitioners when the principal beneficiaries of the alleged wrongdoing were at liberty.

NAB Prosecutor General Syed Asghar Haider had sought time to explain the reasons for the arrest of the four accused and not the remaining ones.

The court had also asked the prosecutor to provide the criteria and procedure by which NAB, under Section 24(a) of the National Account­ability Ordinance 1999, exercised power to decide the need for the arrest of an accused person.

Anklesaria is facing the allegations that he as the director of Galaxy Construction (Pvt) Ltd and in his capacity as a shareholder of 50 per cent shares of the company took over the possession of the amenity land of Bagh Ibn-i-Qasim in Clifton, Karachi, for construction of Bahria Icon Towers on the plot.

According to the petitioners, Galaxy Construction owns the project of Bahria Icon’s two towers of 62 and 42 floors, which were being raised on the plot.

It was alleged that the area of the plot originally was 9,436 square yards but through an illegal manner it was enhanced to 17,336 square yards by giving ancillary allotment to Galaxy Construction.

The petition recalled that Galaxy Construction had in 2007-08 entered into a verbal agreement with Bahria Town to sell 50 per cent of its shares and allow the developer to have its own chief executive to run the operations of the company.

It was agreed that the project would be developed by Bahria Town and the developer would retain executive authority for the bank accounts, filing of returns, etc, through its CEO and would nominate the company secretary.

It was also agreed, the petition said, that Anklesaria would only exercise specific authority on a resolution of the board of directors and would not exercise any signing authority or the authority to operate bank accounts of the company, except when required, nor would draw any remuneration.

The petition argued that the 17,336 square yards land had been acquired by lawful and transparent means.

During Thursday’s hearing, the NAB prosecutor general explained that only those accused were arrested who did not cooperate during the investigation or did not opt for plea bargain.

The court postponed the further proceedings to Jan 6 next year.

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2020