Pleas to transfer Rs3.2bn reference to Hyderabad court dismissed

An accountability court has dismissed four applications challenging its jurisdiction to hear a Rs3.2 billion reference in the wake of the recent amendments to the accountability law.

Judge Suresh Kumar of the Accountability Court-IV announced the order he had reserved on the applications filed by accused Ashraf Ali Janwari, Saifullah Magsi, Aijaz Ali Dawach and Majid Ali, who along with 80 others face charges of misappropriation and money laundering of Rs3.2 billion from government funds in the District Accounts Office (DAO) Hyderabad through fake pension bills and fake agriculture refund vouchers, causing losses to the national exchequer.

The accused through their pleas had requested the judge to return the reference to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) over a lack of territorial jurisdiction so it could be filed before the accountability court in Hyderabad for trial.

In his six-page order, the judge noted that the applications were filed by the accused on the grounds that the territorial jurisdiction to hear the reference lies with the Hyderabad accountability court in the light of the amendment made to Section 16 of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO).

He said the perusal of the reference revealed that the offence was initially committed in Karachi, as the excess amount was released by the finance department, for which three co-accused, including former senior officer of the department Amir Zia Isran, had been booked in the reference.

The record further disclosed that the alleged fake pension bills and fake agricultural refund claims were processed by the DAO Hyderabad, and the amount was disbursed by the respective banks, he added.

The judge pointed out that the NAO and the amendments were quite silent about the territorial jurisdiction of an offence committed in two cities, saying that in such a circumstance, the Criminal Procedure Code was applicable.

“An extra amount of more than Rs8 billion was released by the finance department Karachi from FY2010-11 to FY2021-22 without being sanctioned in the budget, and such an amount was subsequently misappropriated through alleged fake vouchers / agriculture refund claims at the Hyderabad Treasury,” he said.

He ruled that “it means the Karachi NAB court as well as the Hyderabad NAB court has territorial jurisdiction to try the offence. In such circumstances, the jurisdiction of the alleged offence also lies with this court”.

Earlier, lawyers for the accused had contended that the alleged fake pension bills as well as the agricultural fake refund claims / vouchers pertained to the Hyderabad Treasury where the alleged offence had been committed. They pleaded with the court to return the case to the bureau in view of Section 8 of the National Accountability (Amendment) Act, 2022.

In May, NAB had filed the reference against 84 suspects, stating that as many as 5,433 pension bills and 130 refund bills were recovered during the search of former additional district accounts officer Mushtaq Ahmed Sheikh.

The investigation revealed that these pension bills having fake Pension Pay Order numbers were deposited in the bank accounts of the persons other than the names mentioned on the vouchers and 137 bank accounts of 59 individuals, most of which belonged to accused Dawach and his family members and friends.

The 137 accounts were operated at three branches of a private bank between 2010 and 2017, the bureau said, adding the total value of these 1,756 fake pension bills / vouchers was Rs1.165 billion, which were not processed in accordance with the Accounting Policies and Procedures Manual issued by the government.

A banking analysis further revealed that another amount of Rs1.8 billion was also credited from the government funds and transferred into the accounts of private persons. The State Bank of Pakistan debited the Sindh government’s account and transferred the funds to the relevant bank branch, officials of which credited these pension funds into the accounts of private unrelated/unauthorised persons. The accounts were opened in active connivance with bank officials.

NAB had found all the 84 suspects to be involved in embezzling Rs3.2 billion from the pension accounts in the DAO Hyderabad through fake pension vouchers and fake agriculture refund vouchers, causing losses to the national exchequer. Therefore, they allegedly committed an

offence punishable under the provisions of the NAO, 1999, and the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010.