ISLAMABAD - The National Accountability Bureau on Saturday said that NAB was in the process of investigating financial irregularities into the Royal Palm Golf Club deal and would furnish its report to the apex court.
The spokesman of the department said that if the investigation team would find sufficient evidence to frame a corruption reference then a case would be filed against the management of Royal Palm Golf Club and concerned top management of the Pakistan Railways with NAB court.
The spokesman further said that so far they had recorded the statements of three retired military officers and two civilians in a case related to alleged fraudulent allotment of 141 kanals of Pakistan Railways land in Lahore to the management of the Royal Palm Golf Club.
To a question the NAB spokesman made it clear that the department would not refer the case of retired army generals to the Pakistan Army and in case the investigation team would find some compoundable evidence the corruption reference would be filed against them as well. The bureau moreover stated that a report pertaining to the case would be submitted before the court upon the completion of the probe.
The former military officers whose statements were recorded are Lt Gen (Retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi, Lt Gen (Retd) Saeeduz Zafar and Maj Gen (Retd) Hamid Hassan Butt.
The three had been summoned by NAB for their alleged involvement in the leasing out of railways land in 2001, reportedly causing a loss of over Rs 10 billion to the national exchequer.
The two civilians, whose statements were recorded are Khursheed Ahmad Khan, former finance member, and Iqbal Samad Khan, ex-general manager (operations) of Pakistan Railways.
The NAB stated that it would not fix responsibility upon anyone and was simply probing the allotment.
It said the probe report would be submitted to the court which was the body mandated to fixing responsibility in the case.