ISLAMABAD: The Accountability Court of Islamabad on Wednesday exempted property tycoon Malik Riaz from personally attending proceedings of a trial about the Rs100 billion land scam involving the Bahria Icon Tower as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) did not object to his application for exemption.

Accountability Judge Mohammad Bashir, however, sought a reply from NAB on an application seeking permanent exemption from personal appearance of Malik Riaz’s son, Ali Riaz, and son-in-law, Zain Malik.

Judge Bashir granted a permanent exemption to the property tycoon even though he appeared neither at the time of filing of the application nor when the court took it up for the second time.

Advocate Farooq H. Naek filed the papers of attorney (wakalatnama) on behalf of Mr Riaz at the last hearing on March 2. He also submitted the wakalatnama for Ali Riaz, Zain Malik, Salman Ahmed and Waqas Raffat.

Mr Riaz sought exemption from personal attendance on medical grounds and Mr Naek submitted some medical reports to the court in this regard.

Judge Bashir reserved his order for a couple of hours and later accepted the application.

Further proceedings in the matter have been adjourned till March 25.

The Bahria Icon Tower case is actually an offshoot of the fake bank accounts case. In addition to Mr Riaz, his son and son-in-law, the other accused in the case include former senator Yousaf Baloch, Dr Dinshaw Anklesaria, Liaquat Qaimkhani, Waqas Raffat, Ghulam Arif, Khawaja Shafique, Abdul Subhan Memon, Jamil Baloch, Afzal Aziz, Syed Mohammad Shah, Khurram Arif, Abdul Karim Palijo and Khawaja Badeeuz Zaman.

The case was filed in the accountability court in February last year; however, the trial is moving ahead at a snail’s pace.

According to the reference, the accused persons caused a loss of over Rs100bn to the national exchequer through illegal allotment of an amenity plot related to Bagh Ibne Qasim, Karachi, where a tower was built.

On the amenity plot, which is very close to a beach, a skyscraper was constructed, thus causing a huge loss to the exchequer, according to the NAB reference.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2021