Former Saaf Pani Company director gets bail

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday granted bail to former director of Saaf Pani Company Engineer Qamarul Islam Raja in the Saaf Pani Company corruption scam involving billions of rupees.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had arrested Raja, who was a PML-N ticket holder from NA-59 Rawalpindi-III, last year in June on charges of tampering with documents and awarding contracts of water filtration plants at excessive rates and causing a huge loss to the national exchequer.

Earlier in Dec, NAB filed an interim reference against 20 persons including Qamarul Islam and former CEO Waseem Ajmal.

The bureau filed the interim reference in an accountability court against Chief Technical Officer Punjab Saaf Pani Company (PSPC) Dr Zaheer-ud-Din, Chief Procurement Officer Nasir Qadir Badhal, Consultant Engineer Saleem Akhtar and Managing Director KSB Pumps Muhammad Masud Akhter, Deputy Secretary Housing Khalid Nadeem Bukhari, Raja Qamarul Islam, former CEO Wasim Ajmal, former Deputy Secretary Zahoor Ahmed Dogar and others.

The accused allegedly awarded an illegal contract for installation of 116 water filtration plants at exorbitant rates and malafide involvement of PSPC officials by means of corrupt practices caused a collective loss amounting to Rs 345.282 million to the national exchequer.