NAB arrests officer in housing scam

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Lahore, on Friday arrested a deputy registrar, Cooperatives, on charges of misuse of authority and abetment in Chinar Bagh Cooperative Housing Society scam.

According to the case details, it was transpired that the accused Muhammad Ejaz Khan as deputy registrar, Cooperatives, misused his authority by granting approval to New Jhelum-Punjab Project Extension as the authority to grant permission for the extension of the said project resides with registrar, Cooperatives, however, with the malicious intentions the accused approved the extension of the said project and committed the offence of corruption and corrupt practices.

Moreover, the accused aided and abetted as well as actually participated in misappropriation of an amount of Rs 2 billion by the developer and management of the Chinar Bagh Cooperative Housing Society.

Earlier, NAB officials had arrested a major accused namely Tariq Shah in the same case in May 2019. Thus, revelations from him resulted in the arrest of Ejaz Khan. Furthermore, it was revealed that the cooperative society landed in an agreement with private contractors, developers and as per the agreement, the society was to be provided with 625 acres of land between 2013 and 2016 while in violation of the agreement only 850 Kanals land could only be associated with Chanar Bagh Cooperative Society. In view of the same, the accused accumulated approximately Rs 2 billion from general public by selling plot files.