Rs378m PSM scam among four graft cases returned by NAB court

An accountability court in Karachi has sent back four more graft references, including a case pertaining to alleged Rs378 million corruption in the Pakistan Steel Mills, due to the recent amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance 1999.

Judge Suresh Kumar of the Accountability Court-IV ruled that the cases do not fall within the ambit of this court since the losses involved in these cases are less than Rs500 million. He ordered that the references be returned to the national graft buster to file them before the relevant forum according to the law.

The question as to the jurisdiction of this court to hear the references was raised during the hearing of applications filed by former National Development Finance Corporation (NDFC) executive vice president Muhammad Afzalul Haq, Muhammad Kamran and Agha Muhammad Mubeen seeking post-arrest bail in the cases. The judge granted them interim bail against a surety of Rs200,000 each with a direction to file fresh applications before the relevant court for grant of bail.

Haq, who was absconding in the references 35 and 36/2000, was arrested last year. He along with other NDFC officials was booked for allegedly extending financial facility to Northern Polyethylene Ltd (NPL) to set up a plant for manufacturing polyethylene in violation of rules and regulations, causing a loss of Rs82 million to the national exchequer. Both the cases were initially filed before a special court (offences in bank) and later transferred to the accountability court.

Mubeen was arrested in a Rs378 million reference also involving ex-PSM chairman Moeen Aftab Sheikh, other Steel Mills officials and private persons. According to the bureau, Sheikh and other PSM officials misused their authority and sold the national entity’s products at lower rates to private companies, causing a loss of Rs378.197 million to the national exchequer.

In 2012, the investigation of the case was transferred from the Federal Investigation Agency to the bureau on the orders of the Supreme Court.

Kamran along with other officials of the National Bank of Pakistan’s (NBP) Civic Centre branch was booked by the FIA commercial banking circle branch over alleged involvement in a Rs74.697 million scam in 2011. The case was transferred to the NAB in 2014.

In the judgement, the judge observed that all the four references involved losses less than Rs500 million, for which the new amendment made in the Section 5 (o) of the accountability law was relevant to resolve the controversy.

“The language of amended section is plain, unambiguous and definite, the court cannot look for and impose any other meaning,” he remarked, adding that procedural laws are retrospectively applied to pending cases.

“Without going into merits of the cases or veracity of the allegation/charge, since the loss alleged in the all four references is less than 500 million, as such it would fall out of ambit of NAO, 1999 and jurisdiction of this court; therefore, all four references are returned to the Chairman NAB through DG NAB Karachi with all the relevant documents for presenting it before the concerned court/forum as provided under the law,” the judge said.