Three Public Works Officials Granted Bail

A Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench Tuesday granted post-arrest bail to three Public Works Department officials including a sub-divisional officer

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Oct, 2017 ) :A Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench Tuesday granted post-arrest bail to three Public Works Department officials including a sub-divisional officer, allegedly involved in causing loss to exchequer through corrupt practices.

The bench directed the accused to deposit two surety bonds of Rs 500,000 each to avail the bail. The bench, headed by Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, heard the bail applications of accused SDO Khursheed Ahmed, Sub-Engineer Naimat Ali and Sub-Engineer Abdul Razzaq.

During the hearing, the petitioners' counsel Muhammad Amir Sohail argued that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had arrested the accused over charges of carrying sub-standard executions in development schemes of three Constituencies including NA-134, PP-166 and PP-169.

He said that all allegations levelled against the accused were baseless.

He said that the accused were arrested after four years of execution of the development works. He contended that after four years, no mechanism was available to check whether the work was sub-standard or not.

He said that NAB had seized all the case record and documents and it would be an injustice to keep the accused in jail, in the light of the apex court judgements. He said that the complainant had also denied moving any application against the accused.

The counsel pleaded with the court to grant bail to the accused. However, a NAB prosecutor opposed the request saying that the accused were guilty and solid evidence was available against them. But, the bench agreed with stance of petitioners' counsel and granted post-arrest bail to all three accused. APP/syh/rsd