An accountability court in Lahore on Monday acquitted Jang Group Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakilur Rehman and two others in a reference of a 34-year-old illegal land allotment.
Accountability court Judge Asad Ali announced the verdict in the case that also involves former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
In addition to Rehman, former director-general of Lahore Development Authority Humayon Faiz Rasool and its former director of Land Development Department, Mian Bashir Ahmad, have also been acquitted in the case.
Rehman was arrested in March 2020 by the National Accountability Bureau after failing to satisfy their answers in a hearing regarding the case. Later, he was granted bail by the Supreme Court after around eight months in captivity.
The accountability court had in November 2020 issued perpetual arrest warrants for former prime minister Nawaz Sharif after completing the process to declare him an absconder in the same reference. Sharif had been declared an absconder for not joining the court proceedings.
The NAB in its reference had alleged that Rehman had illegally obtained exemption of 54 plots, each measuring one-kanal, situated in Block-H, Johar Town. It alleged that the allotment of the land had been made in connivance with the then chief minister of Punjab, Nawaz Sharif, in 1986 against the exemption policy and the laws for monetary gains. It said the suspects caused a loss of Rs143.53 million to the national exchequer through the land allotment in violation of exemption policy.
