LAHORE (TLTP): An accountability court on Saturday declared Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif’s daughter Rabia and son-in-law Ali Imran proclaimed offenders in the Saaf Pani corruption case.
The court initiated the process of declaring the accused as proclaimed offenders over their continued non-appearance before the court. The investigation officer has been directed to paste the advertisement in the accountability court, declaring Rabia and her husband Ali Imran as proclaimed offenders. Both the accused have been named by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the Saaf Pani corruption reference.
Ali Imran, Rabia and others are accused of denting the national exchequer Rs24.7 million in the Saaf Pani scam by giving the building of the project on rent. According to the reference, Ali & Fatima Developers, a company of Ali Imran and Rabia illegally received the rent of the building which was even not completed and was under-construction.
The NAB on November 19 filed a supplementary reference in Punjab Saaf Pani Company case, also involving son-in-law and daughter of the Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif. PML-N’s former MPA Raja Qamarul Islam and senior bureaucrat Waseem Ajmal Chaudhry are the prime suspects in the reference for being the former chairman and chief executive officer of the Punjab Saaf Pani Company, respectively.
The bureau also implicated Imran Ali and Rabia Imran in the supplementary reference. Another reference of “money laundering and illegal assets” has been pending with an accountability court against the family of former chief minister of Punjab.
The NAB alleged that Islam, being chairman of the company, was involved in awarding contracts of 84 water filtration plants at higher prices. It said the suspect got the contracts of 102 plants approved from the company’s board of directors and committed forgery in the documents.
Ajmal was accused of violating procurement rules as company’s CEO and permitting the installation of the water plants in Dunyapur tehsil beyond the scope of the project. Both Islam and Ajmal were arrested by the NAB in June 2018 and were later released on bail granted by the Lahore High Court on Jan 30, 2019.
