KARACHI: A district court granted bail on Monday to seven brokers arrested in a case pertaining to Rs110 billion speculative sugar trade and money laundering.

The FIA had booked and arrested Mohammad Jalil, Mohammad Bilal, Santosh Kumar, Raj Kumar, Chunni Lal, Pawan Kumar, Jyoti Parkash, Rajesh, Roshan Lal and others in March for allegedly indulging in speculative sugar pricing by the “satta mafia” based in Sindh and Punjab and laundering money through illegal means.

On Monday, around seven suspects moved applications before the district and sessions judge (South) to seek post-arrest bail in the case.

The judge granted bail to them subject to furnishing a surety of Rs200,000 each. The prison authorities were told to release them forthwith if their custody was not required in any other case. However, the judge also directed the applicants to cooperate with the investigating agency.

Earlier, the defence counsel, who represented Jalil, Bilal, Roshan Lal, Pawan Kumar, Jyoti Parkash, Rajesh and Chunni Lal, submitted that their clients had been booked by the prosecuting agency under false allegations since they had nothing to do with the commissioning of the alleged offence of ‘satta’ in pricing of the commodity.

They further submitted that the investigating officers themselves had admitted that the case needed further inquiry to complete the investigation as the forensic examination reports were still awaited. At this stage, the applicants could not be kept behind bars, the counsel argued.

The counsel further said that those sections of the Pakistan Penal Code were not attracted in the present cases as the sale and purchase of sugar between the applicants being brokers and sugar mills was a private business in which the FIA could not interfere.

It was further argued that, similarly, the other sections of the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 were bailable while the relevant sections of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010 also did not fall within the prohibitory clauses. Therefore, the court was asked to grant the applicants post-arrest bail.

On the other hand, the FIA investigating officers said an inquiry into the alleged scam was still under way.

They further told the court that other aspects, including operating fake bank accounts by the suspects and using them for laundering the ill-gotten money, were also being investigated. Therefore, they asked the court to dismiss the bail applications for having no merit.

Last week, a judicial magistrate had accepted the charge sheet filed by the investigating officer against the suspects, recommending their trial under the relevant sections of the Pakistan Penal Code, Peca 2016 and the Amla 2010.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2021