LAHORE  -  An accountability court on Tuesday handed over former Punjab chief minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-In­saf (PTI) President Chaudhry Parvez Elahi to the National Accountabili­ty Bureau (NAB) on physical remand till August 21 in a case of receiving kickbacks in development projects.

Earlier, the NAB team produced the PTI president before Accountability Court Judge Zubair Shahzad Kiyani amid strict security. Advo­cate Amjad Pervaiz request­ed the court to grant him 5 minutes to talk to his cli­ent before submitting argu­ments, which was granted by the court. Special prosecutor Waris Ali Janjua, who repre­sented the NAB, requested for physical remand of Chaudhry Parvez Elahi. He argued that four persons had already been arrested in connection with the case. He submitted that as chief minister Punjab, Parvez Elahi gave a develop­ment package of Rs 72 billion for Gujrat division alone. He submitted that a list of 200 projects was finalised and ap­proval was given for the proj­ects on a fast-track basis, in violation of the rules and reg­ulations. He further alleged that after settling the matter of the kickbacks, the amounts for the projects were released even before the commence­ment of the work. He sub­mitted that the step was also a violation of the law and the bureau had strong evidence in this regard. At this stage, Parvez Elahi’s counsel Advo­cate Amjad Parvaiz submitted that the cases were pending at the Supreme Court and the Lahore High Court against the arrest of his client. Therefore, the court should give the physical remand of Parvez Elahi till Monday, so that the decision of the Su­preme Court and the Lahore High Court would also come by then, he added. Howev­er, the special prosecutor re­quested the court to grant 14-day physical remand of Parvez Elahi. The court, after hearing detailed arguments, of the parties, handed over Parvez Elahi to the NAB on physical remand till August 21 and directed the NAB of­ficials for producing him on the next date of hearing. A day earlier, the bureau had arrested Chaudhry Parvez Elahi from Adiala Jail, Rawal­pindi, after he was released on expiry of his 30-day de­tention period.