The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Monday informed the Supreme Court that an amount of Rs 1.68 billion had been recovered and challan against the accused had been forwarded to the court of competent jurisdiction.
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry with Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani and Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany was hearing a suo motu case against violation of public procurement Rules, 2004 by National Insurance Company Ltd (NICL) in the procurement of land on highly inflated rates causing billions of rupees loss to the national exchequer.
Zafar Ahmed Qureshi, additional DG FIA, submitted a report stating that in respect of a case pursuant to land equal to 804 kanals, an amount of Rs 1,68,63,00000 had been recovered and challan against the accused had been forwarded to the court of competent jurisdiction.
In another case, he stated that an amount of Rs 80 million was recovered. He further submitted that according to latest evaluation conducted by a neutral evaluator, M/S NESPAK, there was a difference of value to the tune of Rs 500 million, thus the balance amount ie Rs 420 million was yet to be recovered from the accused. However, he added, that interim challan of the case had been submitted. He said there were two banking cases in which the accused persons including Chaudhry Moonis Elahi were arrested and interim challan had been forwarded to the court.
Qureshi complained that Tariq Iqbal Puri, acting chairman of NICL, had not co-operated with him in handing over the report of the evaluator. "Instead a letter has been sent to him by the NICL, wherein allegations have been levelled against his team posted at FIA Lahore that NICL facilitated in providing them air tickets etc for travelling to Dubai," he added.
He categorically denied of accepting any facility from NICL and vehemently contended that the same had been written just to malign his position and his team members and that the letter was totally baseless. Puri told the court that he had not extended any facility to FIA team working on the cases registered in Lahore. "However, the letter has been written by my executive officer, which is incorrect to the extent of Zafar Ahmed Qureshi and his team at Lahore and I will be issuing a clarification in this behalf, " he added.
During the hearing, Zafar Ahmed Qureshi apprised the court that hectic efforts were being made to arrest Mohsin Warraich and Qasim Dada Bhai. He submitted that he had received credible information from concerned departments that Qasim Dada had probably left Pakistan by Emirates Airline on December 28, 2010 and efforts were being made to bring him back.
He further stated that he was conducting the investigation into the scam on the directives of the apex court honestly, with full dedication and commitment. However, he added, he was being maligned unnecessarily in the media by some of the arrested persons.
On this, S M Zafar Advocate drew the attention of the court toward a civil appeal filed on behalf of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and others wherein a prayer had been made for transfer of investigation from Zafar Ahmed Qureshi. He submitted that there were important elements, reference to which has been made in the application, which indicate about the biasness of Qureshi, particularly with reference to his apprehension that he was receiving life threats from Shujaat Hussain and others.
The court directed Zafar Qureshi to file reply, if desired. S M Zafar further stated that two other miscellaneous applications had been filed in this behalf but the same were returned by the registrar office after raising some objections, on which the court said these appeals would be fixed on next hearing along with the instant application.
Moazzam Jah, director FIA Sindh admitted that logistics facility was requested from NICL because of an urgency in the matter and on their request, air tickets etc were provided to his team for travelling to Dubai for investigation purposes.
Tariq Iqbal Puri and Moazzam Jah undertake that the said amount would be reimbursed by FIA to NICL and NICL would ensure that in future no such facility would be extended. Moazzam stated that till now Rs 100 million had been recovered, whereas property worth Rs 500 million had been seized. But the cash is to be managed after auctioning the property and hopefully after adjustment, the government money would be recovered. He also submitted a report regarding investigation of the case. He said he was making efforts to bring Qasim Dada Bhai back to Pakistan.
Secretary commerce Zafar Mehmood along with Farrukh Ahmad Hamdi, DG commercial audit, appeared before the court and stated that an interim audit report had been submitted to his office which would be discussed with the audit team and final report would be available on next hearing. The court observed that as far as the questions of granting bail and other relief to the accused persons in these cases were concerned, those would be decided by the courts seized with the same on merits, independently without being influenced in any manner from the present proceedings. During the hearing, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Mushahid Hussain Sayed were also present in the court. The hearing was adjourned for three weeks.
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