SHC commutes imprisonment sentences of LARP officials by two years

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday reduced the seven-year imprisonment sentence awarded to project directors, deputy directors, and additional directors of Lines Area Redevelopment Project (LARP) by two years.

A two-member bench headed by Justice Muhammad Karim Khan Agha though rejected the appeals against the order of the trial court, but commuted the sentence by two years.

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The suspects were convicted of changing the size and status of plots in the project and selling them at throwaway prices to cause a cumulative loss of Rs366 million to the national exchequer.

The project directors, Fareed Ahmed Yousfani and Tahir Jamil Durrani, deputy directors, Fahad Naseem and Waseem Iqbal, and additional directors, Atta Abbas and Shahid Umer, each was awarded seven-year imprisonment sentence by an accountability court of Karachi on April 8, 2021.

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The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had filed a reference against LARP officials for faking the signature of then Karachi administrator Roshan Sheikh on minutes sheet of a meeting to change large size auction plots to 32 square yards (sq.yds) commercial plots and selling and leasing them at Rs200 per sq.yds against Rs50,000 per sq.yds market price.