Apex Court Judge Questioned NAB on Haste in Auction

ISLAMABAD- On Friday, the Apex court judge questioned about the haste in auctioning the six Bahria Town properties when the case is under jurisdiction.

Court proceedings on the Bahria Town case:

The Supreme Court has sent the case involving Zain Malik’s plea bargain with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) back to the preliminary stage, following fresh applications to terminate the deal that was approved in August 2020.

Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, a member of the three-judge bench, observed: “After instituting applications for the termination of the plea bargain (deal approved in August 2020) between Zain Malik and NAB, the references against the accused have been reverted to the preliminary stage.”

Earlier, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had, in its August 4 short order, allowed NAB to proceed with the auction of six attached properties linked to the case. Acting on that order, NAB sold one property outright and received conditional bids for two others, fetching a combined value of Rs2.27 billion.

However, three remaining properties failed to attract qualifying bids, and their auction was postponed.

The Supreme Court has now decided that the appeals by Bahria Town will be heard on a regular basis from August 13 by any available three-judge bench.

In its appeal, Bahria Town argued that the IHC’s short order dismissing its challenge to the auction was flawed both in law and in fact. The company claimed it suffered from “misreading and non-reading of the record and applicable legal provisions.”

Bahria Town further contended that both the August 4 order of the IHC and the May 23 order of the accountability court were issued “without lawful jurisdiction” and were in “blatant violation” of Section 88 of the Criminal Procedure Code. According to the appeal, Section 88 does not allow the attachment of properties belonging to third parties.

The company stressed that the courts failed to distinguish between the assets of the accused and those owned by an independent juristic entity. It argued that the attached properties in question were not the personal assets of the accused but belonged to Bahria Town as a separate legal entity.