NAB to move SC against Qamar ul Islam's bail in Saaf Pani scam

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has decided to challenge Lahore High Court’s decision of granting bail to former director of Saaf Pani Company Qamarul Islam Raja, ARY News reported on Friday.

Sources privy to the matter said that the accountability watchdog has decided to move to the Supreme Court as the LHC has issued its detailed verdict into the matter.

Last week, the LHC had granted bail to 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.

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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