Two FBR officials among four sentenced to prison for embezzlement

An accountability court has sentenced four men, two of them Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) officials, to prison and ordered them to pay around Rs42 million in fines after convicting them of embezzling sales tax refunds, read a statement issued by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Monday.

The Accountability Court-IV awarded conviction to brothers Muhammad Sabir and Muhammad Shahid, as well as to FBR officials Shahid Shamim and Shamim Akhtar, according to the anti-graft watchdog’s statement.

Muhammad Sabir and Muhammad Shahid were awarded 10 years in prison and a fine of Rs19.701 million each, while Shahid Shamim and Shamim Akhtar were awarded five years in prison each and fines of Rs1.1714 million and Rs1.114 million respectively.

According to the prosecution, the four men had illegally availed themselves of sales tax refunds against fake and flying invoices on the manufacture of zero-rated supplies with mala fide intention and caused a loss of Rs111.477 million to the national exchequer.

Another reference

NAB filed another reference against former registrar of cooperative societies Younus Baloch and others in a case pertaining to corruption of over Rs310 million in the affairs of the Madras Cooperative Housing Society.

Also nominated in the reference besides Baloch are Muhammad Azeem, Haji Imam Bux, Ahsan Zubair, Faisal Waqar and Samad Waqar. The court approved the reference for hearing and is likely to supply copies of the prosecution document to the accused in the next hearing. Baloch is already in custody for trial in a similar case.