ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday asked the owner of a private housing society to approach the relevant quarters, including the defence ministry, for the redressal of grievances against former spymaster retired Lt-Gen Faiz Hameed and his aides.

An apex court bench, comprising Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, Justice Aminuddin and Justice Athar Minallah, took up the petition filed by Moeez Ahmed Khan, owner of the Top City housing scheme.

As per the petition, on May 12, 2017, the Pakistan Rangers and officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) raided the office of Top City and the residence of Moeez Khan and took away valuables, including gold and diamond ornaments and money, in connection with a purported terrorism case.

The petition further stated that Lt-Gen Faiz Hameed’s brother Sardar Najaf mediated and tried to resolve the issue. After his acquittal, the petition claimed, Gen Hameed contacted Moeez Khan through the latter’s cousin — a brigadier in the army — to arrange a meeting.

The petition claimed that during the meeting, Gen Hameed told the petitioner that he would return some of the items taken away during the raid except for 400 tola gold and cash.

Housing scheme owner accuses Faiz Hameed of ‘malicious prosecution’, ‘taking away 400 tola gold’

The petition claimed that retired brigadier Naeem Fakhar and retired brigadier Ghaffar of the ISI allegedly “forced” the petitioner to “pay 4 crores in cash” and “sponsor a private AAP TV network for a few months”.

As per the petition, former ISI officials Irtaza Haroon, Sardar Najaf, Wasim Tabish, Zahid Mehmood Malik, and Mohammad Munir were also “involved in the illegal takeover of the housing society”.

During the arguments, it transpired that the Human Rights Cell of the Supreme Court had also dealt with another matter related to the said housing society. When Chief Justice Isa summoned the relevant record, the court was told that former Chief Justice Saqib Nisar had ordered to trash all the records before leaving the office.

The court observed that the matter did not pertain to the enforcement of fundamental rights and suggested the petitioner approach the competent forum, including the defence ministry.

The court also pointed out that the petitioner can take the ex-spymaster as well as other retired officers to a civil or criminal court over malicious prosecution.

The apex court bench also observed that the proceedings related to the housing scheme conducted by ex-CJP Mian Saqib Nisar in his chamber were not per the constitutional provisions.

FIA investigation against Top City owner

It may be mentioned that Justice Nisar a day before his superannuation cleared the petitioner in a complaint filed by an expatriate Zahida Javed Aslam.

In her complaint, Zahida Aslam claimed that Moeez Ahmed Khan used to look after her real estate business in return for a monthly salary.

However, in an alleged fraudulent manner, he transferred the properties in his name and when she tried to retrieve the land he threatened her with dire consequences.

According to the FIA report submitted to Justice Nisar, the land of Ms Aslam was transferred in the name of Moeez Khan on the basis of photocopies instead of original documents.

The FIA in its finding noted that “although the complainant could not produce any evidence in support of her claim, her assertion that she was threatened/coerced/criminally intimidated by Moeez Ahmed Khan…seems closer to reality as nothing whatsoever has been paid by Moeez Ahmed Khan in consideration of share of the complainant worth billions of rupees.”

The FIA’s investigation report concluded that the deal related to the disputed property was “neither executed in normal circumstances nor the transfer of ownership on the basis of photocopies of the documents was carried out by the Registrar of Firms Office Islamabad in a transparent manner”.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2023