Accountability court rejects NAB plea seeking restoration of reference against Kamal

An accountability court on Monday turned down a plea by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for restoring a reference against former Karachi mayor and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan MNA Syed Mustafa Kamal and others pertaining to alleged illegal allotment of land in Clifton.

Kamal, along with then district coordination officer Fazlur Rehman, then executive district officer Iftikhar Qaimkhani, then district officer Mumtaz Haider, then additional district officer Syed Nishat Ali, then Clifton sub-registrar II Nazir Zardari and five builders, was booked in the alleged corruption reference in 2019.

The anti-graft watchdog had filed an application in the accountability court seeking to reopen the case which had been returned to the NAB chairman in the light of now defunct amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance 1999 over lack of jurisdiction.

The accountability judge pronounced the verdict after hearing arguments from both sides, and dismissed NAB’s plea. “NAB’s plea for restoration of the reference was rejected by the court today,” Kamal’s counsel Hassan Sabir told The News. “The court had earlier returned the reference to the NAB chairman in light of the amendments to the accountability law and acquitted his client and others after it didn’t found any evidence of monetary gain against them,” he said.

According to the reference filed by the anti-graft watchdog, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation had in1982 created 198 stalls and shops on two amenity plots adjacent to the Kothari Parade for dislocated hawkers, while four commercial plots, each measuring 255.55 square yards, were also created in the locality.

NAB claimed that the real estate developers later purchased four commercial plots and 198 stalls of the hawkers. However, the two amenity plots were never transferred in the builders’ name.

The bureau also claimed that the builders in connivance with then city mayor Kamal and other officials unlawfully got 102 stalls transferred in favour of a real estate development company’s name through a conveyance deed without obtaining the permission of the Karachi Development Authority.

The NAB reference claimed that the price of these stalls was shown in the registration deed to be only Rs260 million, but its market value was assessed at Rs2.155 billion and the forced sale value was adjudged at Rs1.724 billion.