{"id":28937,"date":"2023-11-27T09:37:05","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T09:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/nab-gives-ahad-cheema-clean-chit-in-assets-beyond-means-reference\/"},"modified":"2023-11-27T09:37:05","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T09:37:05","slug":"nab-gives-ahad-cheema-clean-chit-in-assets-beyond-means-reference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/nab-gives-ahad-cheema-clean-chit-in-assets-beyond-means-reference\/","title":{"rendered":"NAB gives Ahad Cheema clean chit in assets beyond means reference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has informed an accountability court in Lahore that no evidence of wrongdoing was found against Ahad Khan Cheema \u2014 the special assistant to the caretaker prime minister \u2014 during an investigation in connection with an assets beyond means case from 2018, it emerged today.<\/p>\n<p>The development caps a remarkable turnaround as five years ago the Bureau itself had accused Cheema of holding property worth billions of rupees in the name of his family members.<\/p>\n<p>He was the first high-profile arrest in Punjab during NAB\u2019s crackdown against corruption in 2018 \u2014 seemingly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1391346\">targeted against leaders of the PML-N<\/a> and those close to it \u2014 before the general elections.<\/p>\n<p>The bureau had arrested him on February 21, 2018, when he appeared before its investigation team in an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1409106\">inquiry<\/a> into the Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1772135\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Later, the NAB had also initiated separate inquiries against him, one involving the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) City and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1439928\">assets beyond means<\/a>. Cheema was granted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1618053\">bail<\/a> in all three cases in April 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Cheema was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1754576\">cleared<\/a> of the charges by the bureau along with former prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, in the Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme case on May 20 this.<\/p>\n<p>In the latest development, the NAB submitted a report to the Lahore accountability court, asserting that the investigation showed the probe against Cheema was not warranted under the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2026 the updated cash flow position of the accused remained in positive balance in the cash flow chart, which shows that he has not acquired any assets beyond his known sources of income or which he could reasonably account for,\u201d said the NAB\u2019s response, a copy of which is available with <em>Dawn.com<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It further added: \u201cAfter taking into account evidence collected during re-investigation proceedings, the case against accused is not made out under the provisions of NAO, 1999.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The watchdog clarified that the properties supposedly owned by alleged \u201cbenamidars\u201d could not be linked to Cheema. It emphasised that the accounts held by Cheema\u2019s relatives were not \u201cbenami\u201d (undeclared) accounts belonging to him.<\/p>\n<p>The accountability watchdog also highlighted that Cheema provided details of his income to the NAB, and it was examined during the course of the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>The NAB urged the court to decide the matter in accordance with the law\u201c.<\/p>\n<p>It is pertinent to mention here that the accountability court will hear the acquittal plea filed by Cheema on Dec 2.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has informed an accountability court in Lahore that no evidence of wrongdoing was found against Ahad Khan Cheema \u2014 the special assistant to the caretaker prime minister \u2014 during an investigation in connection with an assets beyond means case from 2018, it emerged today. The development caps a remarkable turnaround [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/11\/27120359f3a38e2.jpg?r=121135","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}