Accused in custody without reference: Supreme Court asks NAB chairman to conduct inquiry

The Supreme Court on Monday directed Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to conduct inquiry and fix responsibility identifying the officers who kept some accused persons in custody without submission of any reference against them.
In compliance to an earlier order of the court (August 25), Dr Danishwar Malik, Prosecutor General (PG) NAB submitted a report stating that seven accused across the country were languishing behind the bars for more than 90 days without filing of references against them.
The PG informed the court that four references were filed on August 29, one against Ansari of BCPL on August 31 (today). He further said that the NAB had almost finalised a deal with Double Shah therefore, reference against him was not initiated.
A three-member bench of the apex court comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Ghulam Rabbani and Justice Jawwad S Khawaja hit NAB hard over lack of justification for not filing references and adjourned the hearing for September 14. Earlier, on August 25, the court granted bail to Muhammad Farooq Ansari, one of the BCPL land suppliers/commission agent facing NAB inquiry for last 18 months without any reference.
The CJ remarked that detention by the NAB over and above the fixed period was also against human freedom and thus disappointing. 'I cannot understand you kept the accused for 18 months, neither filed reference, released him nor recover even a single penny from him,' observed Justice Jawwad S Khawaja.
'This is called efficiency of the NAB' observed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Earlier, the court had granted bail to Syed Rahat Mahmood chief executive officer (CEO) of BCPL. On Monday Rahat was present in the court who was directed to return the money or plots to the people as early as possible.
'Otherwise we can send you back to jail once again', remarked the CJ. He, however, confessed that 20,000 people had deposited money for plots but the BCPL had merely 4000 plots. Advocate Roy Mohammad Nawaz Kharral counsel for Mohammad Farooq informed the court that since release of Ansari, NAB officials were intimidating him. The court asked him to submit a written statement in this regard.
According to NAB, BCPL allegedly pocketed billions from the citizen in the name of a housing project launched in Zone V in the federal capital without a formal No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Capital Development Authority (CDA) or the Registrar of the Co-operative Housing Societies. Besides the land purchased by the company was insufficient and disproportionate to the amount collected from the buyers.