LHC suspends Rana Sanaullah’s arrest warrant in land scam case

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Lahore, OCT 14: The Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Rawalpindi bench on Friday suspended Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah’s arrest warrant in an inquiry related to the purchase of plots in a housing society at a “throwaway price”.

Last week, the court of Special Judicial Magistrate Ghulam Akbar had issued an arrest warrant for Sanaullah.

According to Adviser to Punjab Chief Minister for Anti-Corruption retired Brigadier Musaddiq Abbasi, Sanaullah had taken two plots as a “bribe” from an “illegal housing society” — the Bismillah Housing Scheme — in Chakwal district.

Taking up a petition filed by PML-N lawyers against the warrant today, Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan stopped the Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) from arresting the minister and raiding his house.

The court has sought the case record from ACE by October 17.

On October 10, an ACE team returned empty-handed from Islamabad’s Secretariat Police Station after failing to arrest Sanaullah because of a “lack of cooperation” by the Islamabad police.

However, the Islamabad police had claimed that ACE refused to present the record in the case.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, Sanaullah accused the anti-corruption department of “tampering records” and “misleading the court” in a four-year-old case against him.

“ACE has obtained the warrant by deceiving and misleading the court by deliberately hiding the facts. This is why they are hiding the case records along with the warrant which is a legal requirement,” the minister said, adding that he would approach the court against ACE.