Lahore High Court Dismisses Ahad Cheema Petition Against His Arrest

A Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by former director general Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Ahad Cheema against his arrest by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in Ashiana Housing Scheme scandal.

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Apr, 2018 ) :A Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by former director general Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Ahad Cheema against his arrest by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in Ashiana Housing Scheme scandal.

The bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan, announced the verdict which had been reserved a few days on conclusion of arguments by the parties. Earlier, the petitioner's counsel, questioning the arrest of Ahad Cheema, submitted that his client was arrested on charges of awarding a Rs 14 billion contract of Ashiana project in violation of the rules besides allegations of receiving 32-kanal land as gratification.

He submitted that all allegations levelled against his client were baseless. He submitted that the contract was awarded to Lahore Casa Developers in a transparent manner, whereas 32-kanal land was acquired legally and the same was mentioned in his client's declaration of assets.

He submitted that it was a politically motivated case and his client was arrested unnecessarily. He pleaded with the court to declare his client's arrest and subsequent remand illegal. However, NAB's prosecutor objected to the maintainability of the petition and said the petitioner was on physical remand.

He asked the court to dismiss the petition for being not maintainable as arrest could not be challenged during physical remand. Moreover, he said all legal requirements had been fulfilled before the arrest of the petitioner.

He said the petitioner was summoned more than once but he failed to appear before the investigation team. Meanwhile, an accountability court on Tuesday extended physical remand of former DG LDA Ahad Cheema, Bismillah Engineering's proprietor Shahid Shafiq Faridi, former chief executive officer of Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) Imtiaz Haider and consultant Bilal Qidwai for another 14 days in Ashiana-i-Iqbal housing scheme scandal.

NAB produced the suspects before Accountability Court Judge Syed Najamul Hassan amid tight security on expiry of the remand term. The bureau's investigating officer submitted that investigation of the case was still under way.

He requested the court to extend physical remand of the suspects for another 14 days for completion of investigation. At this, the court extending the remand for another 14 days directed NAB to produce the suspects on expiry of the remand term.

It is pertinent to mention here that the court had already sent Chief Engineer LDA Israr Saeed and Member Technical Land Financial Allocation Committee PLDC Arif Majeed Butt, involved in the Ashiana scandal, on judicial remand after they got recorded their statements under 164 of Criminal Procedure Code.

Meanwhile, an LHC bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan on Tuesday, also issued notices to the NAB authorities for April 9 on bail applications, filed by Israr Saeed and Arif Majeed Butt.