LAHORE: With the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) deciding in principle to file a reference in the Rs16 billion DHA City (Lahore) scam against prime accused Hammad Arshad, who is relative of a former chief justice of Pakistan, it is trying to strike a plea bargain with Kamran Kayani, a brother of former army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in the case, according to sources.

The official sources told Dawn that NAB was in contact with Mr Kayani, pressing him to either pay about Rs4bn owed by him or face legal proceedings. He is currently abroad.

“The bureau (NAB) is in no hurry to bring Mr Kayani back to the country through Interpol, to make him part of the investigations. Rather it is offering him a last chance to settle the issue through a plea bargain,” a source said.

Bureau has decided to file reference against Hammad Arshad

A source close to Mr Kayani confirmed that the latter was in “constant touch” with NAB and trying to work out a settlement without joining the investigations.

In response to Dawn’s queries, a spokesman for NAB Lahore said: “Investigations against Kamran Kayani have been in the final stage. NAB is not in contact with him to strike a plea bargain. However, under the law Mr Kayani can opt for a plea bargain.”

The spokesman added that the liability against Mr Kayani and Hammad Arshad, as determined by NAB, were in billions of rupees.

When asked why legal proceedings had not been started against Mr Kayani despite passage of at least four months, particularly when a plea bargain was not being negotiated with him, the spokesman said: “NAB served summons on him and will decide whether or not to proceed against him after completing the investigations against him.”

He said NAB had decided in principle to file a reference against Mr Arshad.

The sources said Mr Arshad too was interested in a plea bargain but no agreement had yet been reached between him and NAB over the “payable amount”.

About four months ago, NAB Lahore sent a summons for Mr Kayani to his residence in the country but his family members refused to accept it. The reminders met the same fate.

NAB then said that if Mr Kayani avoided appearing before its officials it would write to the interior ministry to get a red warrant issued against him through Interpol and he would be brought back to Pakistan.

Dawn repeatedly sent a set of questions to the bureau’s central spokesman, Nawazish Ali Asim, but he expressed his inability to respond, indicating that NAB chief Qamar Zaman Chaudhry may be facing a lot of pressure in the high-profile case.

A news analyst and former NAB director, retired Brig Farooq Hameed, said the bureau had been behaving “oddly” in the case. “In the past we saw NAB bringing back to the country Tauqeer Sadiq and Hamesh Khan in the Ogra and Bank of Punjab cases. But in the DHA City case the NAB’s reluctance to go after the other suspect (abroad) is raising suspicions,” he said.

He was of the opinion that NAB should have ensured that Mr Kayani joined the investigations. “Had Mr Kayani joined the investigations it would have been good for his own image as well as for NAB which is often accused of not maintaining impartiality in high-profile cases,” he said.

In the first week of January this year, NAB arrested Mr Arshad, the owner of the Globaco (Pvt) Ltd. The Defence Housing Authority declared Mr Kayani’s firm, Elysium Holdings Pakistan, co-accused in the scam.

According to NAB, Globaco signed an agreement with DHA EME in Nov 2009, agreeing to develop the DHA City Lahore on a tract of land measuring 25,000 kanals near Thokhar Niaz Baig.

The firm managed to purchase only 13,103 kanals of land, and that too in a scattered form.

Mr Arshad collected Rs15.47bn from the public by issuing allotment letters and later transferred the money to his personal accounts. The accused used the funds for personal gains and invested them in other business ventures.

NAB said that because no meaningful development work was undertaken in the DHA City, the accused cheated the general public and the families of soldiers and martyrs by depriving them of their hard-earned money.

Of the amount received by the main accused from the public, he spent only Rs1.82bn to acquire the 13,103 kanals.

There are more than 11,700 affected persons registered with the DHA, which claims that Globaco — now known as Orange Holding Private Limited, an offshoot of Eden Private Limited — “intentionally kept delaying the project and gave different options for more financial gains”.

Mr Arshad and project director of the DHA City Lahore, retired Brig Khalid Nazir Butt, are in judicial custody.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2016