FBR’s arm confirms land as benami in case against billionaire benami company

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR)’s Anti-Benami Islamabad office has confirmed that 50,000 kanals of land is benami in a case against S.A.S Pvt. Ltd, a benami cooperate company which owned billions of benami assets in different cities of Pakistan.

Sources said that the FBR’s arm filed a reference in the Benami Adjudicating Authority against the company in May last year, for having more than 50,000 kanals benami land in Attock, Mianwali, Jehlum, Chakwal, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Muzaffargarh, Sialkot, Khushab, and Layyah worth of Rs1.9 billion.

According to details, the Inquiry Committee probing the Rawalpindi Ring Road scam directed the FBR to initiate investigations against the billionare benami company and Capital Smart City besides ten other housing societies.

Sources said that the Anti-Benami Islamabad office has claimed that Techno Engineering Services Pvt. Ltd. holds benami properties in the name of S.A.S Pvt. Ltd. whereas it the inquiry report revealed that shareholders of Techno Engineering, Majid Ali and Arslan Ali, had purchased over 800 Kanal in Tehsil Fateh Jung.

In addition, the design, changed from a clover leaf to a pied piper, is to allegedly benefit land holdings of Capital Smart City and S. A. S. in addition to the holdings of Maj General (r) Saleem and his family.

The FBR’s arm revealed that S.A.S Pvt. Ltd. is a paper company with no employees or independent business premises of its own. Techno Engineering Services Pvt. Ltd., the beneficial owner, uses it as a back door laundry to wash its dirty money minted through corrupt practices and tax evasions.

“The beneficial owner hoodwinked tax authorities during tax recovery from its accounts by using benami accounts of the benamidar, in connivance and abetment with the bank manager of UBL, Blue Area Branch. This incident is important in establishing the criminals of both companies i.e. their directors and the company secretary, as well as the bank manager for entering into benami transactions during the period of June-July 2017”, it stated.

It may be mentioned here that the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) through its judgment March 30, 2012, held in the Rental Power Plants (RPPs) corruption and fraud cases, also stated that the beneficial owner through subsidiaries, Techno-E Power and Techno Energy, had derived financial benefits through corruption and corrupt practices from RPPs contracts.

They were liable to civil and criminal actions and the court had ordered them to return the amounts of Rs781 million and Rs300 million in the case of Techno E. Power, failing which a case would be registered against them with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).