RAWALPINDI, Aug 19: A special judge here on Tuesday granted bail to a ‘former judge of Lahore High Court (LHC)’, who has been in different jails since 1992 in two cases registered under Passport Act with federal investigation agency (FIA) in 1986. But the accused will not be released as one more case has been pending against him.

Special Judge Central (SJC) Shaukat Ali Sajid directed the accused Mustafa Ismail Qazi, who claims to be a former judge of LHC despite the higher court has said there is no record of any judge with such name, to furnish two surety bonds each worth Rs600,000 for his release in two cases No 12 and 13 registered with special investigation unit (SIU) of FIA some 22 years ago.

The judge granted bail after Islamabad High Court (IHC) directed the court to allow bail as the accused obtained bail in these cases first in 1987 and later in 1998 against Rs50,000 surety bonds. The judge maintained in his order that as the accused allegedly owed Rs600,000 each to the complainants in the cases, he would furnish surety bonds of the same amount.

The judge separately issued arrest warrants of the in-charge Rawalpindi judicial record room as he had not been appearing in the court despite repeated directions to reply about the unavailability of the judicial record of a case No 188 registered against Ismail.

The accused has been claiming that he was discharged from the case after he settled the money dispute with the complainant but the FIA had obtained his fresh judicial remand in the case. The record of the case is not available in the judicial record room.

Meanwhile, the LHC Rawalpindi bench summoned the district coordination officer (DCO), the over all in-charge of record keeping and the FIA investigation officer in the case No 188 registered against Qazi Ismail after he moved the high court alleging he was being kept illegally in the jail.

Siddique Mughal the attorney of the petitioner told Dawn that the Justice Mazhar Hussain Minhas directed the DCO and the FIA official to appear in the court on August 21 and explain as to why the relevant record in the case of Qazi Ismail had not been maintained.

According to the petition, Mustafa Ismail has been absolved of all cases registered against him in Karachi, Hyderabad, Multan and Rawalpindi except for two cases No 12 and 13 of 1986 and he had obtained bails in these cases in 1998.

It was on July 10, 2008 that the FIA Rawalpindi sought the judicial remand of the accused in the case No 188 from the court of special judge central (SJC) where the accused had been facing the other two cases and the judge granted remand to the investigators without perusing the relevant record.