Court remands ex-PDA DG Qazi Laiq in NAB custody

PESHAWAR: An Accountability Count here Saturday remanded the former director general of the Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) Qazi Laiq in custody of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
The NAB had arrested Qazi Laiq in a case of illegal plot allotment after the Peshawar High Court (PHC) dismissed his pre-arrest bail petition on Friday. On Saturday, Qazi Laiq was presented before the Accountability Court that handed him over to the NAB on 12-day remand.
The NAB had arrested Qazi Laiq from the PHC premises after a division bench comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Syed Afsar Shah dismissed his bail before arrest petition. The accused had got his interim pre-arrest bail on November 13, 2014. He had also got extension in the bail before arrest on various dates due to adjournments in the case.
Qazi Laiq was granted bail in the illegal allotment of the five-kanal plot adjacent to the Iqra University in Hayatabad town.
The NAB claimed that the allotment was made in violation of the codal formalities on very nominal price for 33 years.
Abdul Latif Afridi and Amir Javed, the petitioner’s counsels, pointed out that the main accused, Ijaz Afzal Khan, the PDA director, and Raz Muhammad Durrani, the allottee, were also on bail in the case.
During the course of an enquiry against the PDA officials and others in the case, it was discovered that the five-kanal plot had been allotted to one Raz Muhammad Durrani through a non-transparent bidding process. It was also revealed that officials and bidders had violated the rules and regulations and facilitated the illegal award of the contract. The NAB claimed that the illegal allotment of plot resulted in losses of millions of rupees to the public exchequer.