Court grants relief to Sindh Assembly Speaker
Shares
An accountability court in Karachi, on Monday, made a significant decision by granting post-arrest bail to Agha Siraj Durrani, the current Sindh Assembly Speaker. This move comes in light of a case in which he is accused of amassing assets worth Rs1.61 billion through allegedly illicit means.
Mr. Durrani, a prominent member of the Pakistan Peoples Party, was apprehended by the National Accountability Bureau at an Islamabad hotel on February 20, 2019. His arrest pertained to the investigation of purportedly unexplained movable and immovable assets, 352 unauthorized appointments, financial irregularities in the construction of the MPA Hostel and the new Sindh Assembly building, and the appointment of project directors for these initiatives.
On this particular Monday, Judge Shahid Pervaiz Memon, presiding over Accountability Court-VII, delivered the verdict that had been reserved earlier regarding Mr. Durrani's second bail application.
The judge highlighted that the National Accountability Ordinance, prior to amendments, did not provide for the grant of bail to the accused. The court acknowledged that Mr. Durrani had experienced periods of custody from July 1, 2019, to November 3, 2019, and again from December 23, 2021, up to the present date.
It was noted that his second arrest had resulted in over a year of continuous incarceration, and the extensive examination of more than 50 witnesses had understandably prolonged the trial process.
In emphasizing the principle that no one should be held in custody indefinitely and that bail should not be used as a form of punishment, the judge granted bail to Mr. Durrani, conditional upon the provision of a Rs1 million surety. Earlier in the proceedings, Mr. Durrani's defense counsel, Farooq H Naek, argued that his client had been in custody for a duration exceeding one year. Additionally, there were approximately 50 witnesses whose testimonies were pending for the prosecution to record.
During his previous bail period, Mr. Durrani had not misused this concession or tampered with evidence. The defense further emphasized that, over the span of four years, they had requested only two adjournments, and the delays in concluding the trial warranted bail on statutory grounds. NAB prosecutors, Syed Manzoor Ali and Nadeem Ali, countered these arguments by noting that similar grounds had been previously presented by the accused in an earlier bail plea, which had been dismissed on December 29, 2022.
The court at that time had ruled that Mr. Durrani had not been in custody continuously for one year, as his last custody period had been two months and 20 days. However, they conceded that now, more than one year had elapsed, and Mr. Durrani remained in custody.
