Court grants 14-day extension in Shahbaz's remand

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau on Tuesday was granted 14-day extension in the physical remand of Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif in Ashiana Housing scandal.

NAB gets 10-day remand of Shahbaz

The NAB presented the PML-N president before the accountability court after the expiry of 10-day remand it granted to the anti-graft body on Oct 06.

The former Punjab chief minister was arrested in Rs14-billion Ashiana-i-Iqbal housing scam earlier this month. He had been summoned to Bureau’s Lahore office in connection with Saaf Pani company investigation, but was arrested in Ashiana housing scandal.

NAB has accused the younger Sharif of ordering cancellation of the award of housing project contract to the successful bidder, Chaudhry Latif & Sons.

Fawad Hassan, who is stated to be a close aide to the Sharif brothers, worked as Secretary Implementation to Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif in 2013. While misusing his position, he allegedly called chief executive officer (CEO) of the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) Tahir Khursheed and Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Project Director Ali Moazzam in his office and directed them to cancel the contract, which was legal, and in accordance with the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules, as the firm was the lowest qualified bidder. Moreover, the firm was working on the project for the last eight months when Fawad Hassan called both officials and asked them to cancel the contract.

After three years of cancelling the legal contract of Chaudhry Latif & Sons, in 2015, the then Director General LDA Ahad Khan Cheema, on the orders of Shahbaz Sharif, awarded the contract to M/s Lahore Casa Developers, said to be a proxy group for M/s Paragon City (Pvt) Limited, allegedly owned by PML-N leader Khwaja Saad Rafique.

Talking to journalists after the court hearing, Shahbaz denied all the allegations and said “They could not prove a penny’s worth corruption against me.”

The ex-CM also took a jibe at the PTI government and said the masses have come to know that their promises were hollow.