Iqbal Z Ahmed makes bail in NAB case 

ISLAMABAD: The High Court of Sindh Circuit Court, Hyderabad on Thursday granted post arrest bail to Iqbal Z Ahmed and five other accused persons in a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) investigation. 

The post arrest bail granted by the Sindh High Court (SHC) to Iqbal Z Ahmed, chairman of Associated Group (AG), Asim Iftikhar, a director and the chief financial officer of AG; Humayun Fareed, the vice chairman of AG; Fasih Ahmed, a senior manager of AG and one of Iqbal’s sons; Razi Ahmed, the chief executive officer of the Lahore Literary Festival and also  Iqbal Z Ahmed’s  son; and Salamat Ali, a close associate of Iqbal Z Ahmed subject to furnishing solvent surety in the sum of Rs 10 lakh each and P.R Bond in the like amount to the satisfaction of Additional Registrar of the court.

The case

Earlier in the month Ahmed had been arrested along with his sons and had sought an extension of his bail, which was denied by the court. He is accused of involvement in the rental power projects scam. The case dates back to 2013 and involves allegations of money laundering through offshore companies.

The case alleges that Ahmed made illicit transactions worth billions of rupees from his companies in various countries, including the United Kingdom. He is said to have sent Rs 1.7 billion abroad to acquire foreign exchange for payments related to his companies and those of others. This marked Ahmed’s second arrest since 2019.

The arrest was strongly opposed by Ahmed’s family and legal team. In a statement, the family said: “Mr Iqbal Z. Ahmed and his associates were apprehended from within the courtroom of the accountability court in Hyderabad, where they had appeared for the hearing of a baseless case filed by NAB against them.” This statement suggests that the detainees were not given a fair chance to defend themselves in court, and that NAB had acted arbitrarily and unlawfully.

The bail 

After just under two weeks in the slammer, Justice Muhammad Karim Khan Agha and Justice Khadim Hussain Tunio of SHC allowed the accused persons to be released on bail. 

According to the brief facts of the reference against Iqbal Z Ahmed and others had from 2011 to 2019 maliciously declared the sale of LUB Gas Pvt. Ltd as Rs.72 billion respectively with sheer intention to cover up the injection of black money into the corporate bank accounts of JJVL, Lub Gas and NGL regarding extraction from the gases supplied by the Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL/Government Exchequer.

Ahmed’s flagship company JJVL was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013 for causing a loss of Rs 22 billion to the state-owned SSGC by paying lower royalty for extracting LPG from a gas field. Ahmed claimed that he followed the government policies and that the bidding process for setting up the plant was transparent and fair.