Peshawar: The accountability court has frozen the accounts of the contractors involved in the Peshawar BRT scandal and issued orders to sell the plots.
The accountability court has issued a major decision regarding the BRT scandal, which includes freezing the bank accounts of 75 contractors and issuing orders to sell 2 residential plots.
Judge Mohammad Yousaf of the accountability court confirmed the orders of NAB DG Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while issuing the orders. Additional Prosecutor General Mohammad Ali and Prosecutor Mank Shah appeared on behalf of NAB during the hearing of the case.
During the hearing, the court was informed that NAB is conducting investigations into the BRT scandal and in this regard, the bank accounts of contractors and 2 commercial plots have been frozen. All actions have been completed in this regard and investigations are ongoing, the frozen accounts are frozen to further the investigations.
On this occasion, the lawyers for Popular and Kielsonz told the court that the contractors are involved in international arbitration and freezing these accounts is illegal because NAB does not have the authority and no action has been taken against the third non-national contractor of this project.
Responding on this occasion, NAB’s lawyer told the court that the NAB chairman can delegate his powers to anyone so the non-national contractor they are talking about was just an unnamed partner, so this authority is available to the DG.
The position of NAB’s lawyers was that this freezing is done under the law and NAB can freeze these accounts.
During the hearing, the lawyers of the contractors termed the freezing of accounts as an illegal act and said that NAB did not fulfill the legal requirements and these accounts and plots have been sold, with a value in crores.
Later, the court verified the order from NAB to freeze the contractors’ accounts and plots and directed the contractors’ lawyers to file an appeal if they wish to challenge it in court.