Corruption charges: probe against ex-chief secretary completed, NAB tells SHC

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday informed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) that the investigation against former provincial chief secretary Mohammad Siddique Memon of illegal allotment of land has been completed. The SHC bench was hearing a plea filed by Memon seeking quashment of an investigation being carried out against him by top corruption watchdog.
The NAB prosecutor informed the judges that it had completed the investigation against Memon into charges of allotting six acres land in Karachi in 1992 when he was the land utilization secretary. He said that the reference will be filed in the accountability court after the approval of NAB chairman.
Meanwhile, the court extended Memon's interim pre-arrest bail till November 29. Memon had obtained bail in August 2015 after NAB served him a call notice for investigation against. The bureau had maintained that that there was sufficient incriminating material against the chief secretary and there appeared a reasonable ground to believe that he was guilty of the offences punishable under National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999.
On the other hand, the ex top bureaucrat of the province denied the charges and submitted through his lawyers that the land was allotted in 1992 and regularized in 2008 under the relevant laws. He submitted that the land was neither allotted by the chief secretary nor was regularized by him.
He said that he was posted as secretary land utilization and when certain facts came to his knowledge he sent the matter to the land committee which said it had already regularized the land. ?I never misused my powers, neither allotted nor regularized the said land, therefore I should be freed from the charges,? Memon had pleaded.