ISLAMABAD: A two-judge bench of the Islamabad High Court on Thursday sought reasons from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) as to why Maheen Fatima, a senior official of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), was not named in the case related to tampering with the records of Chaudhry Sugar Mills.

The bench was hearing two petitions filed by Zafar Hijazi, former SECP chairman.

In one petition, he requested the court to quash the FIR filed against him in the record tampering case. His other petition was against the charge-sheet issued to him by FIA’s special court Judge Irum Niazi.

The special court had framed charges against Mr Hijazi in October last year for allegedly tampering with the records of Chaudhry Sugar Mills which is owned by the family of deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Mr Hijazi was represented by his counsel, Ahmed Hassan, and the deputy attorney general as the federal government is defending the former SECP chairman in the case. The petitioner said that three officials of the SECP had been accused in the record tampering case, but the FIA had filed the case only against him.

He said the names of two other SECP officials — Ali Azeem and Maheen Fatima — should be included in the FIR. He said there was no proof that he pressurised any SECP official to close the case of Chaudhry Sugar Mills.

The FIA informed the court that Ms Fatima was its key witness in the case and that the report it had submitted to the Supreme Court proved tampering with the mills’ records. There were four witnesses that Mr Hijazi allegedly pressurised the officials to sign the documents.

The FIA claimed that two SECP senior officials — Tahir Mahmood and Abid Hussain — were present at the time when Mr Hijazi pressurised Mr Azeem and Ms Fatima to sign the documents.

It said there was no apparent reasons or benefits for Mr Azeem and Ms Fatima to tamper with the records and close the case in the back date.

Initially, Ms Fatima told the SC-formed joint investigation team in the Panama Papers case that the alleged money laundering case against Chaudhry Sugar Mills was closed in 2016 on the directives of Mr Hijazi. But the date penned in the closing note was May 2013.

The court has fixed the next date of the case’s hearing on March 7.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2018