The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Thursday auctioned off Bahria Town properties owned by real-estate mogul Malik Riaz to settle his defaulted plea bargain from 2019.
The legal saga began almost six years ago when the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) reached a £190 million settlement with Riaz’s family. That same year, the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) accepted Riaz’s offer of Rs460 billion to settle a case involving the illegal acquisition of thousands of acres in Karachi’s Malir district by Bahria Town. Riaz had said at the time that the recovered amount would be used to pay off the apex court’s settlement, and the funds were subsequently transferred to the court’s accounts rather than the federal treasury.
On October 20, 2023, the Supreme Court noted that only Rs60.72 billion out of Rs460 billion had been paid, out of which Bahria Town had paid just Rs24.26 billion.
According to a press release issued by NAB Rawalpindi on Thursday, the anti-graft watchdog carried out public auction of six commercial properties linked to Malik Riaz and Bahria Town to recover defaulted funds pertaining to the court-approved plea bargain.
Among the properties were Rubaish Marquee that was auctioned for Rs508 million – Rs20 million higher than the reserved price; Corporate Office-I, which received conditional offers of Rs 876,000,000 and Corporate Office-II that received offers of Rs 881,500,000.
While a final approval from NAB on acceptance of the conditional offers remained pending by the time this report was filed, at least three properties remained unsold due to lack of qualifying bids, for which a re-auction will be announced.
It may be noted that the auction took place despite Bahria Town on Wednesday filing an appeal with the SC against the auction that was allowed by the Islamabad High Court (IHC).
“The impugned order … passed by honourable Islamabad High Court … as well as the order dated [March 19] passed by Accountability Court No.1 are contrary to the express provisions of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, as amended by the Second Amendment Act, 2022, which provides that ‘upon failure of an accused to comply with a plea bargain Agreement, the Agreement becomes inoperative with respect to the rights and obligations of the parties immediately’,” argued the petition.
It said that NAB “initiated a series of baseless and vexatious legal proceedings with mala fide intent to harass, pressurise and coerce the petitioner”, calling the manner in which NAB acted “discriminatory and prejudicial”.
“The courts … failed to appreciate that [NAB] does not have any authority to auction or sell the properties of the petitioner, in view of Section 33-E (recovery of amount of fines, etc as arrears of land revenue) of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 and the provisions of the West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, 1967,” the petition read, requesting that the apex court granted leave to appeal the IHC’s order.
