LAHORE – The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday granted bail to Fawad Hasan Fawad, the former principal secretary to two ex-prime ministers of PML-N, in the assets beyond means case.
The court had ordered the suspect to submit surety bonds worth Rs10 million. During the proceedings, the court bench asked the counsel for the National Accountability Bureaus (NAB) as to how many shares were held by the ex-bureaucrat in the Motorway City and Kashmir Road Plaza projects.
The court expressed anger when the prosecutor failed to provide the details.
The NAB has filed two corruption reference against former principal secretary to the ex-prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.
The second reference alleged that Fawad collected Rs1.09 billion worth of illegal assets, including a five kanal commercial plot in Rawalpindi’s Saddar area valued at around Rs50 million.
The top bureaucrat has also been alleged to have shares in a 15-storey commercial plaza located in the same area valued at around Rs3.085bn.
The corruption watchdog stated that the inquiry against Fawad was converted into an investigation on Oct 12, 2018 and on March 15, 2019, NAB Chairman Javed Iqbal had given his approval for the new reference.
Fawad Hassan Fawad, the former principal secretary to Nawaz Sharif, is already named in Rs14 billion Ashiyana-i-Iqbal housing scam. He is one of the co-accused in the case alongside former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif though the politician was able to secure bail from the Lahore High Court.
According to accountability watchdog, Fawad, while serving as implementation secretary to the Punjab chief minister in the Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing project, had misused his authority.
The Grade-22 officer of the prestigious Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) was arrested in July 2018 and still remains behind bars.
