Awami Muslim League (AML) chief and former interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed moved the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday, challenging the appointment of PML-N's Hanif Abbasi as a special assistant to the prime minister.

The federation of Pakistan through the Cabinet Division secretary and the PML-N leader have been named as the respondents in the petition filed through Rashid's counsel Sajeel Sheryar Swati.

The development comes days after the newly appointed SAPM had announced a reward of Rs50,000 to anyone who brought him Rashid's wig, a statement over which PPP Secretary General Farhatullah Babar had expressed concern.

In the petition, Rashid said that Abbasi had been appointed the SAPM through a notification dated April 27. "Both the notification and [the] appointment are illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional and violative of the principles of good governance and the rule of law," he said.

The AWL chief noted that a first information report dated July 21, 2012 was registered against Abbasi in Rawalpindi under Sections 9(c), 14 and 15 of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997.

"The brief facts alleged in the said FIR are that [Abbasi] (along with others) obtained 500kg of the medication ephedrine for his firm i.e. Gray Pharmaceutical. Thereafter, [Abbasi] instead of using ephedrine for lawfully authorised medical/industrial purposes sold it to drug smugglers and profited illegally."

The petitioner also said that Abbasi had been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for life in 2018 by a trial court. It went on to say that Abbasi later challenged the sentence in the Lahore High Court (LHC) and also filed a separate plea seeking suspension of the sentence and bail.

He said that on April 11, 2019, the LHC only suspended Abbasi's sentence and not the conviction.

Rashid argued that the office of the special assistant carried high prestige. "Admittedly, a person with a criminal conviction, particularly a conviction for dealing in narcotics which is an offence involving 'moral turpitude', cannot be someone suitable or fit to hold such high office."

The former minister also argued that the LHC had only suspended Abbasi's sentence which meant that he "still carries the conviction". He added that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had misused his authority and made "a mockery of the rule of law and the Constitution" by making the appointment.

Rashid called on the court to direct the respondents to show under what authority of law Abbasi was appointed as SAPM.

Ephedrine quota case

The ephedrine case surfaced in March 2011 when then federal minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin told the National Assembly that the government would investigate the alleged allocation of a quota for the production of 9,000kg of ephedrine to two pharmaceutical companies — Berlex Lab International and Danas Pharmaceutical Limited.

According to the rules, a company cannot be allocated a production quota of more than 500kg of the drug, a limit fixed by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).

The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) had eventually registered a case in June 2012 against nine suspects, including Abbasi.

In 2018, he was found guilty of selling 500kg of ephedrine to narcotics smugglers. He had obtained the controlled chemical for his company, Gray Pharmaceutical, in 2010. However, instead of using it for medicinal purposes, Abbasi sold it on to narcotics smugglers.

A fine of Rs1 million was imposed on the PML-N leader along with the life sentence. Seven others were acquitted in the case. The CNS Court of Rawalpindi had sentenced Hanif Abbasi to life in prison just before the July 25 general elections.

Subsequently, the PML-N leader had filed an appeal against his conviction before the LHC Rawalpindi bench. Later, two judges of the LHC's Rawalpindi Bench had recused themselves from hearing the PML-N leader’s appeal in the ephedrine case. The case was eventually shifted to the LHC's Lahore bench.

In April 2019, the LHC had suspended the life sentence handed to Abbasi and ordered for him to be released on bail. A two-member bench, headed by Justice Alia Neelum, accepted Abbasi's plea to suspend his sentence but declared that it would continue to hear the case.