KARACHI: A judicial magistrate has summoned two senior officers of the ministry of national food security and research to explain why action may not be taken against them for giving clearance to a vessel carrying soya beans unfit for human consumption from the United States in 2018.

Judicial Magistrate (East) Mukesh Kumar Talreja passed the order while hearing a case pertaining to alleged import of unhealthy soya bean.

The judge noted that from the charge sheet it appeared that the name of then additional secretary of the food security ministry Muhammad Ayoub Chaudhry was not placed in the column of accused persons for want of approval from competent authority.

He further noted that according to the statement recorded by the accused under Section 161 of the criminal procedure code, a technical committee comprising Dr Basit, Umer Farooq, Akhlaque Hussain and Dr Akhlaq Ahmed was constituted after discussion between the Department of Plant Production (DPP) director general Falak Naz and the additional secretary.

The committee submitted its report by which the vessel was cleared on the verbal approval of DG Falak Naz.

The charge sheet further suggested that the investigating officer did not mention their names among the list of the accused.

Looking at the statement of the witnesses who implicated the DG, the additional secretary and others, the judge observed that incriminating material was recorded.

However, before passing any order on the final charge sheet, the judge summoned both the officers with a written explanation as to why they should not be named as accused to face the trial.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had initiated an inquiry on the March 28, 2018 letter sent by the then chairman of the All Pakistan Solvent Extractors Association, Multan alleging that the officers/officials of DPP, Karachi and the subject ministry were causing unjustified delays in clearance of oilseeds cargos for kickbacks.

A fact-finding inquiry had also revealed that some officers were involved in corruption, who had received a bribe of Rs16 million for issuing clearance to the merchant vessel.

Consequently, four officers, who were part of the committee and ordered the release of the vessel, were suspended.

The charge sheet suggested that it came on record that the DPP had issued a permit to various importers for importing soya bean oilseeds from the US.

The oilseeds were imported from the US through indenter M/s Sea Trade Group, Karachi, and the consignment arrived through the merchant vessel Vita Ocean on Dec 13, 2018 at the Port Qasim.

It said that an inspection had found the consignment to be highly moist and severely infested with fungus.

The presence of Cockleur (some sort of weed) was also found. The inspection team drew the samples and the same were found infected with bacteria highly harmful for human health, it added.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2022