KARACHI – The Federal Anti-Corruption Court issued a show-cause notice on Friday to the superintendent of the Karachi Central Jail for failing to bring former National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) chairman Ayaz Khan Niazi, who has been accused for financial scam, to the court.
The prison official was ordered to submit an explanation for failing to comply with the court’s order, whereas the jail superintendent was also issued directives for ensuring that the main accused, Niazi, is brought to the court on April 8. Special Anti-Corruption Court Judge Shaukat Ali Memon expressed his displeasure with the prison official for not bringing Niazi to the court after the judge had issued orders in this regard.
The court also repeated Non-Bailable Warrants (NBWs) for Amin Qasim Dada who is one of the main accused in the NICL scam case. According to the prosecution, the NICL chairman, Finance Executive Director Muhammad Zahoor, Audit General Manager (GM) Ather Naqvi, Real Estate GM Zahid Hussain and Law GM Ijaz Ahmed Sheikh, along with their absconding accomplices, were booked for causing huge financial losses to the exchequer by violating the rules in the procurement of a piece of land in Korangi.
In the previous hearing, the court had issued NBWs against absconding NICL directors Dada and Javed Saeed, Khalid Anwar Khan, Khwaja Akbar Butt, Syed Muhammad Iqbal and Amir Hussain, and directed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to arrest them and produce them before the court, but the law enforcers have failed to comply with the court’s directives thus far.
The main accused was not produced in the court on Friday, following which the judge issued orders in this regard, directing the jail authorities to bring Niazi to the court on the day of the next hearing.
The other four suspects are currently confined in Lahore in connection with other cases. According to the prosecution, the secretary of the Federal Commerce Ministry had forwarded a written complaint to the FIA on November 16 last year, asking the agency to carry out a probe of all purchases of land by the NICL.
The ministry had also requested the FIA to register a separate case of embezzlement of NICL funds in the transaction of 10 acres purchased in August 2009 in the Korangi area against the amount of Rs 90 million per acre. The secretary said that the chairman, the board of directors and the investment committee of the NICL, and the sellers and valuators, in connivance with one other had committed offences of criminal breach of trust, misconduct, forgery and cheating.
First Information Report No 21/10 was registered under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonesty inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 109 (punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequences and where no express provision is made for its punishment) of the Pakistan Penal Code, read with Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act-II, 1947 at the FIA Commercial Bank Circle in Karachi.
