LAHORE: An accountability court on Saturday granted the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) a 10-day physical remand of former Punjab minister for forestry, wildlife and fisheries Sibtain Khan.
The anti-graft bureau has been directed to produce the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker before the court on June 25.
Earlier in the day, Khan resigned from his ministerial office.
In a letter to Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar, Khan said that he will contest the case “on merits [and] in accordance with law”.
The PTI leader is accused of awarding an illegal contract worth billions of rupees in Chiniot in 2007 when he was serving as provincial minister for mines and minerals. No other company was considered during the bidding process for the contract, NAB Lahore said.
It is pertinent here to mention that Khan was elected to the Punjab Assembly as an independent candidate from PP-39 (Mianwali-IV) in general election, 1990.
He received 29,582 votes and defeated a candidate of Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI). He served as Punjab minister for prisons from 1990 to 1993. He ran for the provincial assembly as an independent candidate from PP-39 (Mianwali-IV) in general election, 1997, but was unsuccessful.
He was re-elected to the provincial assembly as a candidate of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) from PP-46 (Mianwali-IV) in 2002.
In January 2003, he was inducted into the provincial cabinet of chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and was appointed as Punjab minister for mines and minerals till 2007.