ISLAMABAD: The accountability court hearing multi-billion rupees fake bank accounts case on Monday recorded the statement of another prosecution witness in Pink Residency reference against the Omni Group's Abdul Ghani Majeed, Khwaja Anwar Majeed, and others.

The prosecution witness, Asif Sarki, registrar Ghadaf Town, while testifying before the Accountability Court judge, Muhammad Azam, in Pink Residency case, said that he had produced original documents regarding Pink Residency from the official record.

The Pink Residency was registered in 2017 for 18.5 million, the witness said, during cross examination by Arshad Tabrez, counsel for Abdul Ghani Majeed. The reference pertains to a project, "Pink Residency" in Karachi's Gulistan-e-Jauhar area.

The accused had been allegedly involved in illegal regularisation of two plots in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. One of the plots measured 23 acres of land, while the other was of seven acres. The anti-graft body has alleged that financial transactions related to the illegally-regularised plots were conduct.ed through fake bank accounts.

The NAB estimates that the illegal land regularisation and consequent sale caused a loss of Rs4billion to the national exchequer. The witness further told the court that he had not prepared the record, which he had produced before the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Investigation Officer (IO). The record was prepared by Sikandar Ali Qureshi and Nadeem Baloch, he said, adding that Qureshi had been retired, while Baloch was still serving in the department.

To a question, he said that the document sent for microfilming at the time of registration contains the full set pertaining to the previous ownership and fresh No Objection Certificate (NOC) for sale.

The witness said that the report regarding verification of documents with respect to the NOC of the AC and mukhtairacar was not sought by the NAB, and they were only asked to produce index book and day book.

The stamp duty and registration fee were calculated as per notified rules, he said. The court adjourned hearing of the case till November 3rd (today), and the witness will continue recording his statement.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020