HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad circuit bench of the Sindh High Court on Monday granted three officials of education and works department bail set at Rs500,000 each in an embezzlement case registered against them by the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE).

The suspects, Ali Bahadur Memon, then executive engineer education works, Saleem Majid Baloch, then assistant executive engineer, and Manzoor Ali Khaskheli, tender clerk, were accused of preparing false tender and bills and having embezzled Rs14 million of government money in collusion with a contractor, Shah Mohammad Leghari.

The ACE said in the FIR the government funds allocated for the construction of a water supply scheme in Jakhrio Sario village, Khairpur Nathan Shah taluka, under MPA priority funds were swallowed up through false recording of measurement called measurement books in bureaucratic jargon.

Advocate Mumtaz Alam Leghari who represented the suspects argued that there was no reasonable ground to believe that his clients were guilty of the offences with which they had been charged. The prosecution`s story was completely false, fabricated, concocted and unbelievable, he said.

He said that two of his clients being BS-17 and 18 officers, the competent authority to grant permission for registration of an FIR against them was chief secretary. The FIR had been lodged without preliminary enquiry in violation of Rules 1993 although ACE was bound to hold it, he added.

He said the alleged incident took place in 2014 while the FIR was lodged on March 12 this year after an inordinate delay of two years which was fatal to prosecution case.

The ACE Dadu lodged the case against the suspects under sections 409, 420, 467, 468, 34 PPC read with section 5(2) Act-ll of 1947.-Staff Correspondent