May 22, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 16, 1429

KARACHI, May 21: Justice Bin Yamin of the Sindh High Court acquitted ambassador at large Hussain Haqqani in a 1996 bad debt case registered against him by the Federal Investigation Agency in May, 1999.

Mr Haqqani was alleged to have advanced a loan of Rs10 million to the Assets Investment Bank as chairman of the House Building Finance Corporation. The FIR said the debtor bank was a financial institution of dubious credentials and was sanctioned the loan on Mr Haqqani’s personal order. The bank defaulted on repayment and the HBFC chairman caused a wrongful loss to the exchequer by misuse of authority. He was charge-sheeted under the provisions of the penal code and the prevention of corruption act. The accused approached the high court when his application for acquittal for lack of evidence under 249-A of the criminal procedure code was dismissed by the trial anti-corruption court.

His counsel, Adnan Karim, argued that the case was fabricated by Mr Haqqani’s successor in office, Siddiqul Farooq of PML-N, and the complaint lodged by an HBFC general manager was actually drafted by the then inspector-general of Sindh police, Rana Maqbool Ahmed Khan. The complainant general manager, Mohammad Dawood, admitted these facts before the trial court. Another HBFC general manager, who appeared as a prosecution witness, said he was under pressure from the new HBFC management. They did not support the prosecution case.

The counsel said the principal amount of the loan was repaid by the debtor bank and no loss was caused to the public exchequer by the accused. The prosecution had failed to produce any material to sustain the charge and there was no likelihood of the trial court resulting in conviction, the counsel said.

Appearing for the FIA, Deputy Attorney-General Rizwan Ahmed Siddiqui submitted that the record showed that the complainant and witness produced by the prosecution did not testify against the accused.

Referring to the record, Justice Bin Yamin said the prosecution had failed to make out an offence and adduce evidence against the accused. The proceedings in the trial court would be a sheer wastage of time, he said, allowing the criminal revision application.