The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday approved bail for Pakistan People’s Party provincial lawmaker Ali Nawaz Shah who was among three people earlier sent to prison by an accountability court for his alleged involvement in a fraud case.
The high court also suspended the earlier decision by the National Accountability Court (NAB) court which disqualified the MPA and sentenced him to a five-year jail term and his two relatives to four and three-year terms for their involvement in the revenue fraud case of around Rs 5 million. Hearing his plea, the court accepted Shah and his relatives’ bails on payment of Rs 5,00,000 bail bonds each.
Shah’s cousin Syed Khadim, who also served as federal population minister in 1988, and a nephew Syed Imtiaz Ali Shah, were sentenced by the NAB court to four and three-year jail terms respectively.
The NAB reference filed in 2001 said Ali Nawaz Shah and others sold some land to the government at inflated prices and later claimed the land as their own. Ali Nawaz, who was first elected as a member of the Sindh Assembly in 1977, also served as a federal minister for industries in 1989. He has been elected a senator and an MPA three times since then.
On September 10, the NAB court sentenced Ali Nawaz Shah – accused of misusing authority when he was serving as the minister for agriculture from 2008 to 2013 – to five years in prison. The PPP leadership had strongly condemned the decision terming it political victimisation of the party.
