ISLAMABAD: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) filed an appeal in the Supreme Court on Wednesday for setting aside contempt notices against the central bank and its officials in a money laundering case.

It has pleaded that superior courts in normal practice never rely on anonymous complaints without first verifying identity of the complainant and correctness of the complaint.

The appeal was filed by Advocate Khawaja Mohammad Farooq on behalf of the SBP in response to the court’s April 28 decision to frame contempt charges against some officials of the bank, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Customs department for violating its 2006 judgement in the Khuda-i-Noor case.

A two-member bench headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan will indict, when the next hearing is held, Second Secretary of the FBR Dr Sadiqullah, Joint Director of the SBP’s Exchange Policy Department Aftab Iqbal Siddiqui, SBP Director Syed Samad Hussain and Additional Collectors of Customs Abdur Razzaq.

Deputy Attorney General Sohail Mehmood is representing the government in the contempt case.

The contempt proceedings were initiated by former chief justice Nasirul Mulk on an anonymous letter in the Urdu language titled “Jail Kay Sathi” (Prison Companions).

In Aug 2006, a passenger, Allah Bash, was arrested at Islamabad airport while carrying $100,000 and Chinese Yuan 2,600 and intending to travel to Beijing. The Customs department confiscated the amount and registered a money laundering case against Allah Bash. But later the SBP issued a no objection certificate for the return of the money.

The anonymous letter said that special treatment was meted out to Allah Bash at the behest of the then prime minister with whom he had spent his days in a jail.

The SBP appeal says that no violation of any order or directive of the Supreme Court has been committed and, therefore, no case of contempt of court has been made out.

“A bona fide interpretation or application of a law or judgment of a superior court cannot be termed as contempt of court as clarified in Section 18 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003,” the petition argues. “The appellant (SBP) was entitled to the benefit of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947.”

It says that the SBP had no role in the return of the money as it had issued NOC for the return of the forfeited money since the money had not been taken out of Pakistan and receipts produced by Allah Bash for the purchase of foreign currency were found to be genuine on investigation.

Moreover, the appeal says, the return of foreign currency was exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Customs and FBR authorities and the SBP had no authority to issue a directive about the return of the money.

It says that the collector of Customs issued an order on May 18, 2010 after reaching a conclusion that no cogent evidence had been produced by the authorities concerned that warranted confiscation of the foreign currency.

The appeal says that when a Customs judge convicted Allah Bash, an appeal was moved before the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi Bench which suspended the operation of the Customs judge order and granted bail to the accused.

It argues that the present case has no nexus with the Khuda-i-Noor case of 2006 rather it is a distinguishable case since Khuda-i-Noor produced fake receipts for the purchase of foreign currency whereas in the current case it is contrary.

The appeal says that circumstances and facts of the matter were duly placed before the Supreme Court in response to the show cause notice, but these were not given due consideration while summoning SBP officials for framing of charges.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2016