KARACHI, March 3: The Sindh High Court granted bail on Monday to two more assistant drug controllers prosecuted by the National Accountability Bureau and remanded the cases against them to the trial court.

Rehmatullah Beg, Dr Tanveer Alam, Abdul Sami Mangrio and another assistant drug controller had been tried and convicted by an accountability court for issuing bogus certificates of consumption of raw material imported by a pharmaceutical company for manufacturing medicines. The material was exempted from sales tax and customs duty but, according to NAB, it was sold on black market without being used in the production of drugs. The drug officials were accused of accepting bribe for issuing the certificates, thereby causing a huge loss to the public exchequer. They were sentenced to 20 years jail with a fine of Rs5 million each. The owner of the company, meanwhile, bargained with NAB for immunity by undertaking to pay Rs60 million in instalments.

All the four officials challenged their conviction in appeal. An SHC division bench, comprising Justice Wahid Bux Brohi and Justice Mohammed Moosa K. Leghari, earlier remanded Mangrio’s case to the trial court and granted him bail. The same bench passed identical orders on appeals by Rehmatullah Beg and Dr Tanveer Alam on Monday.

It was argued on behalf of the appellants that one of the prosecution witnesses was not produced in the court, whereas another had deposed against the prosecution but was not declared hostile. The consumption record that formed the basis of the NAB case was not exhibited in evidence. The importer was neither impleaded as a co-accused nor as an approver nor as a witness. He filed a suit in the high court for refund of Rs30 million he paid to NAB “under duress” to “protect his family’s honour.”

The bench directed that the case against the appellants should be retried and they should be allowed to call and cross-examine the importer as a witness. No accountability court is functioning at the moment and Beg and Alam have each spent two years in jail. They should, therefore, be admitted to bail, the bench ordered.

Election petitions: An election tribunal, comprising Justice Amir Hani Muslim of the High Court of Sindh, on Monday framed nine points for determination while hearing an election petition filed by Khawaja Sharful Islam, advocate, challenging the election of Akhtar Bilgrami of the MQM.