KARACHI: Sindh High Court (SHC) has allowed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to conduct a thorough investigation in the alleged charges against JS Investments for defrauding National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) as per the direction of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The court announced on December 5, 2017.
Earlier, through Suo Moto case No. 18 of 2010 Order dated November 22, 2013, taken up by the Supreme Court of Pakistan wherein Auditor General Pakistan identified a loss of over Rs 255 million to NICL. Following this NAB was ordered to investigate the case further.
NICL invested an amount of Rs 2 billion in JS Fund for a period of 42 months without any tender or the permission of the federal government, but after a year NICL withdrew the same amount from the fund on the pretext of brokerage houses reports.
In contrary, the FIA during the investigation found the reports of all the brokerage houses, which indicated to ‘hold’ the investment and if such investment continued the NICL could have gained projected profits of Rs 940 million or 47 per cent of the total investment.
Following the investigations, JS Investment Ltd filed a petition in SHC challenging FIA’s summon notice for investigation against them in the NICL fraud case. FIA has indicted NICL ex-chairman Muhammad Ayyaz Niazi and others employees namely Executive Director Zahoor Ahmed, General Manager (Audit) Athar Naqvi, General Manager Real Estates Zahid Hussain and JS Investment Ltd.
It was earlier reported that the board of the Directors of NICL, on March 12, 2009, had proposed, not approved, the investment of Rs 2 billion in pre-IPO of JS principal Secure Fund-I. While proposing the said investment no comparison, examination or evaluation was carried out with other offers or proposals. After receiving the proposal from JS Investment, the chairman of the Board on March 13, 2009, issued two cheques of Rs 300 million and Rs 1.7 billion the very next day in favour of the fund for a period of 3 years and 6 weeks.
On February 11, 2015, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Inspector Gulsher Mugheri on behalf of respondents, FIA, NAB and SECP, submitted an incorrect statement before the Honorable Court stating therein that “nothing could establish, therefore the competent authority has ordered to close enquiry.”
On December 05, 2017, after hearing NAB, JS Investments and Additional Attorney General, Court ordered NAB to conduct a thorough investigation into JS Investment/NICL fraud as per the direction of Supreme Court.
