KARACHI, Sept 17: A division bench of the Sindh High Court on Wednesday declared unlawful FIA custody of two teenaged accused involved in a cyber crime and granted them interim protective bail till Sept 27.
The accused, Agha Junaid and Faisal Sajjad, were asked to furnish sureties in the sum of Rs200,000 each besides executing personal bonds in the like amount. They were also directed to approach the Multan special court, which was seized of the FIA challan in the case, for bail on or before Sept 27.
Earlier, the bench, which consisted of Justices Sabihuddin Ahmed and S. Ali Aslam Jafri, recorded the statement of judicial magistrate Anwarul Hasan Siddiqui, who recalled a remand order against the accused on Sept 10. The statement confirmed the allegation that the FIA obtained a physical custody order from the magistrate fraudulently by concealing the banking court’s refusal to extend its remand order on Sept 10.
With Nazar Masih Asif and Faizan Shamim, Junaid and Faisal are accused of fraudulently transferring and drawing a huge amount by hacking into a money firm’s computer network.
TRADER HELD: Businessman Sadruddin Ganji was arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency on Wednesday afternoon as he came out of a courtroom after obtaining protective bail before arrest in six cases from a Sindh High Court judge.
Justice Mohammad Sadiq Leghari granted Mr Ganji protective bail in the sum of Rs100,000 each in six duty evasion cases registered against him by the FIA in 1997. His bail petition was earlier transferred from the court of Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed where a number of FIA staff were present since the morning. Mr Ganji was followed by them as he went to Justice Leghari’s courtroom from the main building to the new annexe accompanied by his counsel, Advocates M. Ilyas Khan and Mohammad Jamil. His petition against the inclusion of his name in the exit control list was, meanwhile, left over by a division bench due to the paucity of time.
After grant of protective bail, the petitioner moved out of the courtroom to furnish security. He was intercepted by the FIA personnel and arrested in a seventh case said to have been registered by the agency in 1997.
According to his bail petition, Mr Ganji was booked in a case with the then customs collector and other officials in 1997. He went abroad and was declared an absconder. All co- accused were, meanwhile, granted bail.
He returned to Pakistan after negotiating a deal under which he paid over Rs500 million to the public exchequer. He was assured that the pending cases would be dropped and no fresh case would be registered against him. He alleged that the federal interior minister bore him a grudge as he declined him a ‘personal favour’ in a rice export deal. The 1997 FIR was split into six cases and his name was put on the ECL despite his voluntary return home under a settlement, the petition alleged.
LOAN DEFAULT: The Securities and Exchange Commission has initiated action against the Sindh Alkalis management for a number of defaults under the Companies Ordinance, the Sindh High Court was informed as a petition moved by the employee shareholders.
The employees alleged in their petition, filed through Advocate Noor Naz Agha, that the concern was deliberately being mismanaged to compel them sell their shares at a discount.
Two directors of the company appeared before Justice Ataur Rahman, SHC company judge, in response to his notice and requested adjournment to enable them to engage a counsel. The request was accepted.