Three Sindh Bank officials arrested in M6 land scam case
Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested three Sindh Bank officials after registering an FIR of scam related to land acquisition for M6 (Hyderabad-Sukkur) motorway.
The complainant has referred to the report of a fact-finding committee, formed by Sindh government, which was incorporated in FIA's case. Mr Lohano stated that the NHA, being land acquiring agency, had issued funds amounting to Rs3,618m to Naushahro Feroze deputy commissioner for acquiring about 1,500 acres of land in the district for the M6 project.
He said that it was reported that some amounts were disposed of through one cheque without announcement of the award under Section 11 of the Land Acquisition Act 1894, under which it was necessary that award should be announced in the presence of acquisition agency and landowners.
The complainant has mentioned nine points of the committee's report which show that the account office of Naushahro Feroz DC was used for transaction and request for cash requirement was made in advance for the cheques to be issued in advance dates.
The points revealed that some cheques were issued as 'open' instead of being 'crossed' whereas compensation against land acquisition was approved on photostat papers to the people who resided abroad. The entire process of land acquisition did not follow the guidelines issued by the Board of Revenue (BoR) and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) time to time. Payment of huge amounts was made on affidavits and the signatures they contained differed from those of recipients' NICs.
The committee has recommended that federal agencies, including FIA and NAB, could be approached to register a criminal case for further probing suspicious transactions, misuse of NHA funds and also placing the officers concerned on exit control list (ECL).
During the course of the FIR inquiry, senior executive vice president of Sindh Bank Asad Ali Shah also filed a complaint (incorporated in the FIR) regarding the scam. Its contents revealed that preliminary findings of matter of Naushahro Feroze indicated certain illegalities in terms of cash payments, cheating, forgery, fraud, misappropriation, embezzlement or tampering in documents in the account of land acquirer (A/c No. 01051635061000) for land acquisition in Naushahro Feroze at the branch which might result in a loss of Rs2.52bn to the national exchequer.
The bank representative's complaint mentioned that Mukhtiar Ali Chandio, branch manager, Atta Hussain Sahito, branch operation manager, and Zeeshan Ali Larik, cash officer, should be booked. "These three Sindh Bank officials have been arrested," said an FIA source. DC Nausharo Feroze has already absconded.
The FIR mentioned that during the course of inquiry, statement of bank officials was recorded. They revealed that several cheques which were issued in the names of different beneficiary individuals were entertained or passed without conducting biometric verification and in order to hide such illegality, fake and fabricated biometric verification reports were prepared.
The FIR stated that DC Tashfeen Alam (proceeded abroad) deliberately, and intentionally did not attend call of land acquiring agency (NHA) while hearing claimants and while passing award, hence violated mandatory provision of LAA. Thus, it appeared that the LAO/DC in collusion with banking officials committed embezzlement or misappropriation in federal government funds.
Another source quoting NHA officials commented that none of NHA representatives was called for acquisition of land in Naushahro Feroze.
"NHA being land acquiring agency can raise objection over cost of land being determined through LAA procedure," he said, and disclosed that different lands were acquired in any project under the LAA, 1894 like barren land, lands with orchards, standing crops or forestation or any structure.
"In each case of these classifications, a separate committee is supposed to be formed with experts from relevant department like forest, agriculture etc so that actual cost could be determined/verified according to the class of land. No such committee is formed," he said.