ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday rejected National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) plea against the acquittal of the accused named in the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) corruption case, over lack of evidence.
The maintained Lahore High Court’s verdict and set Ayaz Niazi, the main accused in NICL corruption case and others free over lack of evidence filed by the anti-graft watchdog body.
“NAB’s evidence are not much sufficient to prove the charges against the accused”, the top court’s bench remarked.
It may be noted that the then chief justice of the SC Iftikhar Chaudhry had taken suo moto notice of the alleged corruption in the NICL.
Read more: Former NICL chairman, five others sentenced to prison in land scam case
The Scandal
The story of over Rs six billion NICL scam broke in 2009-10 when Mohsin Warraich’s company, Messrs Privilege, purchased 803 kanals from the NICL at Mauza Toor, Lahore, for a sum of Rs1.68b. The company allegedly sold the land without getting the property mutated in its favour.
The NICL also sold land measuring 20 kanals near the Lahore Airport Road to Mohsin Warraich for Rs1.7b. It sold the land at a rate of Rs5.3 million per kanal, although its market value was much higher.
Initially the scam was being investigated by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), but it was transferred to NAB in 2014 on the directives of the Supreme Court.
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