MULTAN: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has allegedly favoured suspects in a mega housing scam in violation of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO).

According to section 25 of the NAO, an accused can return the assets or gains acquired or made by him in any offense only through voluntary return or plea bargain. In October 2016, the Supreme Court, however, barred the NAB chairman from approving voluntary deals.

On June 27, 2016 an interim reference was submitted before the NAB court against 13 officials of Wapda Employees Cooperative Housing Society (WECHS), including its president Muzaffar Ali Abbasi and secretary Saeed Ahmed Khan for a Rs1.011 billion fraud in phase III.

Arrested on March 24, 2016, Mr Khan died in coma on March 15 last. On July 11, 2017, he was granted bail on medical grounds. He was admitted to Nishtar Hospital in May 2017, after, according to jail authorities, he had injured himself in a suicide attempt but his family alleged that it was an attempt on his life.

On Jan 27, 2017, the NAB director general of Multan ordered his subordinates to freeze 18 properties of the accused but when the supplementary reference was filed on Feb 2, only 12 properties were mentioned in it. The number of accused increased to 46 from 13.

As per section 12 of the NAO, the director general can freeze the property only for 15 days and after filing the reference only the court can do it but the properties were kept frozen for over a year although the court ordered to freeze the properties on Feb 14, 2018.

Two frozen houses remained in the use of NAB investigation officer Mohsin Haroon and deputy director Qaisar Mehmood, Both houses are owned by Nazia Zia, the sister of accused Wajid Rasool. The houses were later vacated.

Accused Rasool admitted that he had received 2,232 marla residential plot files from Mr Khan but the investigation officer put responsibility on Allah Ditta, another accused.

Similarly, 900 marla residential plot files went to Mr Rasool through a fake mutation of state land but he ‘returned’ file of 132 marlas and also transferred a 64 kanal plot and got ‘adjusted’ his 400 marla files. During interrogation, he made a voluntary deal for the remaining marlas and got the deal approved by the NAB authority.

Sources said that to accommodate Rasool and other accused, NAB case officer Ilyas Qamar and Mr Haroon adjusted and returned their assets in violation of rules.They said that the fraud was not possible without the connivance of the officials of the Multan Development Authority and departments of revenue and cooperative but no action was taken against them.

They said that the NAB director general in the reference stated that two management committee members of WECHS, including Muhammad Yousaf Wahla and Arif Wains, approved the allotment of commercial plots in connivance with other MC members, however they were exonerated by the NAB, while saying that no malafide or illegal gains were found on their part.

They said that a number of accused were not arrested before the submission of the final reference or before the summon orders by the court despite none of them were on bail nor their voluntary return and plea bargain was approved.

Deputy Director Media, NAB Multan, Asim Raza said that he has nothing to say over the matter.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2018