The Lahore High Court on Wednesday granted bail to former director general of Lahore Development Authority (LDA) in Ashiana Housing scandal and an assets case.
The court granted him bail because of delay in the trial and instructed him to submit two surety bonds worth Rs1 million each.
A close associate of former chief minister Shehbaz Sharif, he was arrested on February 21, 2018, for his alleged involvement in the Ashiana Housing scam. Later, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had accused him of amassing assets beyond known sources of income.
His bail was approved on November 25, 2020, but denied release because the NAB was still investigating him in the assets case.
During the investigation of Ashiana scandal, it was revealed that Ahad Cheema owned properties worth millions. He was allegedly given 32 kanals of land worth Rs30 million as ‘illegal gratification’ from the owners of Paragon City.
The NAB said that Cheema failed to give any plausible explanation for the land.
Ahad Cheema was also accused of embezzlement in the Ashiana Housing Scheme, misuse of his authority and the illegal award of the Ashiana-i-Iqbal project contract worth Rs14 billion to Lahore CASA Developers.
Others arrested in the case include Cheema’s brother-in-law Mansoor Ahmad, his cousin Ahmad Hassan, LDA officials Sajjad Bhutta and Israr Saeed, former PLDC employees Imtiaz Haider, Arif Majeed Butt, and its consultant Bilal Qidwai.
