LHC moved to seek action against protesting Punjab bureaucrats over Cheema's arrest

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has been moved on Monday to seek injunctions against protesting bureaucrats and officers of Punjab government who observed strike over the arrest of former Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Director General Ahad Cheema.

The petitioner has adopted a stance that the civil secretariat officers have not abode by the civil service rules after recording a strike and locking down their offices over the arrest of ex-LDA chief.

The petition asserts that the government officers are sole servants of the state rather than persons and their protest was sheer violation of the rules.

Calling the protest observed by a section of the Punjab bureaucracy illegal, the petitioner pleaded with the court for an action against the officers for intervening National Accountability Bureau (NAB) investigation into the Ashiana Housing scam.

It is apropos to mention here that the arrest of Ahad Cheema drew sharp reaction from a section of the Punjab bureaucracy and PML-N leaders.

Cheema, who is now serving as chief executive of the Punjab Power Company, was arrested from his office located in Gulbarg area of Lahore.

The former LDA chief has been accused of misusing his authority with criminal intent to award a contract to Bismillah Engineering on the basis of nepotism.

The anti-graft body spokesperson alleged that Cheema caused a loss of Rs 455 million to the national exchequer after awarding contracts on favouritism.

On Friday, the NAB investigators obtained access to mobile and laptop data of Cheema to investigate the data and emails. It was then said that the investigators would also approach technical experts to secure and restore the data which had been either formatted or deleted.

Cheema’s physical remand

On Thursday, an accountability court in Lahore granted the NAB 11-day physical remand of Cheema in the Ashiana Housing Scheme scam.

According to the NAB notice, an inquiry against officials of the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) and LDA revealed that “prima facie Shahbaz Sharif, being the Chief Minister Punjab, had ordered certain illegal acts in sheer violation of the laid down procedures for functioning of PLDC due to which the company bore a huge financial loss.”

“Shahbaz had ordered cancellation of contract of Aashiana-e-Iqbal to a successful bidder, leading to award of the contract to other builder, which resulted into a loss of Rs 193 million approximately,” the notice reads.

He also directed PLDC to assign the project of Aashiana-e-Iqbal to LDA resulting into award of contracts to M/s Lahore Casa Developers (JV), thus causing loss of Rs 715 million approximately and ultimately failure of the project, according to the notice.

It says the chief minister had also directed PLDC to award consultancy services of Aashiana-e-Iqbal project for Rs 192 million approximately, but its actual cost was Rs 35 million.