A provincial anti-corruption court on Saturday dismissed the bail application of former Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Yellow Line project director Zameer Abbasi in a case pertaining to alleged financial irregularities of Rs8.5 billion in the project.
Former project director of Karachi Mobility Project Abbasi, along with others, has been booked by the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) over alleged misuse of authority and advance payment of Rs8.5 billion to contractors of the Yellow Line BRT project in violation of the contract that caused significant financial losses to the Sindh government.
After hearing both sides, Special Anti-Corruption (Provincial) Judge Muhammad Aminullah Siddiqui dismissed the application filed by Abbasi through his lawyers seeking post-arrest bail. He ruled that the suspect “failed to make out any case for the extraordinary concession of post-arrest bail.”
The judge said that the allegations against the applicant involved misuse of public office, violation of public trust, and unauthorised release of enormous public funds in favour of a private contractor. “Such allegations constitute economic offences affecting public revenue and public confidence in governmental institutions,” he added.
The court noted that the Chief Minister’s Inspection Team (CMIT) inquiry report specifically concluded that Abbasi, while serving as project director, by passed the prescribed procedure, ignored the mandatory role of the consultant and the technical department, and acted in violation of the terms and conditions of the contract by releasing an advance payment of Rs8.5 billion to the contractor without any contractual authorisation and without adequate safeguards.
“Such acts prima facie disclose abuse of official authority, criminal breach of trust, and conferment of unlawful financial benefit upon the contractor, resulting in substantial loss to the public exchequer,” it said.
The judge observed that the court was mindful of the fact that, “if persons entrusted with billions of rupees of public money are enlarged on bail despite prima facie material showing deliberate misuse of authority and unauthorized release of public funds, it is likely to erode public confidence in the accountability process.”
The defence counsel argued that the applicant had neither derived any personal benefit nor caused any wrongful loss to the government, and his implication was based on conjectures, surmises, and a misconceived interpretation of official decisions taken in the discharge of his official duties.
He said the entire prosecution case originated from the CMIT enquiry report, which was purely a fact finding administrative report. By its very nature, it contained observations, assumptions, opinions and recommendations of an administrative body; it did not possess the status of substantive evidence and could not by itself, establish the commission of a criminal offence or justify the continued incarceration of the applicant/accused, he argued.
The lawyer said a departmental inquiry, administrative inquiry, vigilance inquiry, audit report, CMIT inquiry, or any other fact finding exercise cannot legally substitute the mandatory preliminary enquiry prescribed under the Sindh Enquiries and Anti-Corruption Rules, 1993.
The law requires a specific statutory procedure to be followed before criminal proceedings are initiated against a public servant, he said, adding that the fact-finding inquiry report itself discloses that the inquiry was allegedly conducted on the directions of the chief minister, Sindh; however, neither the fact-finding inquiry report nor the prosecution record refers to or annexes any written order, notification, authorization, or directive issued by the chief minister authorizing such an inquiry.
Another striking feature of the present prosecution was that the Anti-Corruption Establishment itself has assumed the role of complainant, informant, victim, aggrieved person and investigating agency simultaneously, the counsel argued and added that neither the Sindh Enquiries and Anti-Corruption Act1991 nor the rules framed thereunder confer any jurisdiction upon the Establishment to become an aggrieved person in respect of alleged administrative decisions taken within another government department.
He said the record clearly demonstrated that the Government of Sindh had adopted a policy of accelerating the execution of the Karachi Mobility Project (Yellow Line BRT), particularly the New Jam Sadiq Bridge, with the objective of completing the project substantially ahead of the original contractual timeline. During these inspections, the secretary of Transport & Mass Transit Department, the applicant in his capacity as project director, the consultant, engineers and representatives of the contractors were present and were specifically instructed to ensure timely and accelerated completion of the project.
Interestingly, the special prosecutor raised no objection on the post-arrest bail plea of the suspect.
The court, however, observed that he did not submit any written permission from the Prosecutor General or from the Enquiries & Anti-Corruption chairman in respect of no objection.
