KARACHI: An accountability court has dismissed an application seeking transfer of a reference pertaining to alleged misappropriation and money laundering of Rs3.2 billion from government pension funds.

Judge Suresh Kumar of the Accountability Court-IV observed that the applicants/suspects had not made out their case for return of the reference to the National Accountability Bureau by the incumbent court for want of territorial jurisdiction under Section 8 of the recently enacted National Accountability (Second Amendment) Act, 2022.

Therefore, the judge dismissed the applications filed by suspects Ashraf Ali Janwari, Saifullah Magsi, Aijaz Ali Dawach and Majid Ali.

In May, NAB filed the reference claiming all 89 suspects (of whom five had passed away) in connivance with each other misused their authority and misappropriated an amount to the tune of Rs3.2bn from the pension accounts in DAO Hyderabad through fake pension vouchers and fake agriculture refund vouchers, causing losses to the exchequer.

It claimed to have recovered 5,433 pension bills and 130 refund bills while searching the house of ex-ADAO Shaikh.

It added that 1,756 pension bills/vouchers pertaining to the MCB Bank were sorted out, which were signed and processed by the then ADAOs at different times.

The probe found these pension bills fake having fake Pension Pay Order (PPO) numbers and the same were deposited in the bank accounts of the persons other than the names mentioned on the vouchers and 137 bank accounts of 59 individuals, most of them belonged to accused Aijaz Dawach and his family members and friends.

These 137 accounts were operated at three branches of the MCB Bank during the period between 2010 and 2017, it added.

The investigation had revealed that total value of these 1,756 fake pension bills/vouchers was Rs1.165bn, which were not processed as per Accounting Policies and Procedures Manual (APPM) issued by the government applicable on federal and provincial governments.

The State Bank of Pakistan debited the Sindh government`s account and transferred the requisite pension funds to the corresponding bank branch, officials of which credited these pension funds into the accounts of private unrelated/unauthorised persons.

The bank officials later on facilitated the accused persons with cash withdrawal of the deposited money.

Ex-ADAO Shaikh, during his posting as section officer budget in the fiscal years 2015-16 and 2016-17, paid an amount of Rs4.6bn for pension without any authority.

Suspect Amir Zia Isran, who also remained posted as the section officer in the finance department as well as SO to the Chief Minister Secretariat from 2009 to 2017, took a bribe from accused Noor Ahmed.

It said they committed an offence punishable under the provisions of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 and the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2022