LAHORE A writ petition, filed on Saturday in the Lahore High Court, has challenged the appointment of Rana Zahid Mahmood as new National Accountability Bureaus Director General for Punjab on the grounds that it was in conflict with the Supreme Court of Pakistans restriction on contractual re-employments. The petitioner also alleged that the respondent was influencing the fair probe into the Canal Motors Scam involving the embezzlement to the tune of Rs 1.18billion. It may be recalled that Superintendent of Police Rana Mansoorul Haq is the main accused in the above-said scandal. The petition has been filed by Shah Faisal Farooq, an scam affectee, through advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique inter alia who has contended that since Rana Zahid, a former judge of the Lahore High Court, had taken oath as a PCO judge and as such he lost his job following the reinstatement of the present judiciary, he could not be appointed as NAB DG. The petitioner further alleged that the impugned appointment has been made eschewing the rules and regulations, but entertaining personal liking. Rana Zahid, it may be noted, is a close relative of Rana Qaiser, another accused in the Canal Motors Scam. The petitioner contends that Rana Mansoor is the son-in-law of a sitting MNA, hence he has a political clout. Similarly, the son of Rana Zahid is the son-in-law of another MNA. In this background, the petitioner alleges that the probe was taken back from the NAB investigating officer Rana Waqas because political pressure and the same was entrusted to Allah Rakha who, giving benefit to the accused, has neither taken Mansoor into custody nor any action against him. The petitioner contends that he and others had moved a number of applications to the high ups but to no avail. The petitioner has given the reference of another petition before the LHC alleging that the police had failed to take action against Mansoor despite findings of IO Additional IG, Ch Tanvir Ahmad Khan, wherein he was held guilty. He says exercising his political influence, Masnoor has got a number of 'false cases registered against the affectees and NAB IO Waqas. An interesting aspect of these cases, he goes on to contend, is that, the complainant of the cases is a woman who has allegedly got the cases registered against the affectees and IO changing her name and identity and she took back cases against some other accepting money from them. The petitioner has prayed to the court for removing Rana Zahid as DG NAB and taking the accused of the scam into custody and that red warrants may be issued of those accused who have left the country so that looted money could be retrieved and the guilty punished duly.