PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has directed the National Accountability Bureau to respond to the petition of a former director of an investment bank against the call-up notices issued to him in connection with an ongoing investigation into alleged corruption in the Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit project.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah and Justice Mohammad Ijaz Khan directed additional deputy prosecutor general for the NAB Salman Fayyaz to submit replies on behalf of the respondents, including the NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa director general, within a fortnight.

The petitioner - former “non-executive” director of Trust Investment Bank Mamoonur Rasheed Qureshi - requested the court to declare illegal the two NAB call-up notices issued to him on June 7 and June 28 for appearing before a team probing the matter.

He also sought the court’s orders for the anti-graft watchdog to arrest him until the final disposal of the petition.

Ex-director of investment bank challenged move of anti-graft watchdog

Advocate Mukhtar Ahmad Maneri appeared for the petitioner and said his client was a former non-executive director of the TIBL, which was under liquidation and the official liquidator had been appointed by the company judge of the Lahore High Court.

He said that the Peshawar Development Authority and the Asian development Bank (ADB) had awarded the contract for the BRT project to joint venture companies including CR21G- Maqbool-CALSONS JV.

The lawyer said that in pursuance of the said contract the contractor was required to submit performance guarantee (bank guarantee) to the PDA.

He said that the contractor had approached the Bank of West Indies International (BWI) for the issuance of the said performance guarantee.

Mr Mukhtar said that the BWI issued the performance guarantees (PGs) on the instruction of the contractor and as per requirement of law, since it was operating outside Pakistan it needed a corresponding bank for this purpose.

He added that the TIBL being the corresponding bank forwarded only those PGs and instruments of Nov 22, 2017, on behalf of the contractor in favour of the PDA.

He argued that the role of the TIBL being a corresponding bank was only to forward the instruments of guarantee under the instructions of the BWI and to collect the required fee for forwarding the same from the contractor.

He contended that the TIBL was only a corresponding and forwarding bank to coordinate documents for and behalf of the BWI and was only required to ‘Forward the instrument as received.’

The counsel said that the TIBL had made it clear to the PDA that the said guarantees were only forwarded by it and it couldn’t take responsibility for its enforceability within Pakistan.

He said that on Sept 1, 2019, the PDA had sent a letter to the contractor wherein it had mentioned that the BWI happened to be an unrated ‘foreign limited company’ which didn’t appear to be either authorised to trade or regulated as a bank.

The lawyer added that the letter also declared that the BWI was not a reputable bank and therefore, it was not acceptable to the authority.

He said in May 2023, the petitioner had attended the inquiry started by the NAB, while on June 7, 2024, the relevant investigation officer issued a call-up notice to the petitioner.

The counsel added that a questionnaire was sent to the petitioner that was meant for the CEO of the TIBL, Ahsan Rafique.

He said another call-up notice was issued to the petitioner on June 27.

The lawyer contended that the petitioner had never remained the CEO of the TIBL, so he was not a relevant person for the questionnaire.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2024