ISLAMABAD: The suspended chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) Zafarul Haq Hijazi has moved the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to quash a case registered against him for allegedly tampering with the record of a sugar mills owned by the Sharif family.

Mr Hijazi’s petition cited the secretary interior, the director general Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the station house officer (SHO) of the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) Islamabad as respondents.

The petition said the allegations against Mr Hijazi were false since he never pressured any SECP official to tamper with the record. It said officials had tampered the record themselves and accused Mr Hijazi of pressuring them to do so.

It said the SECP chairman had been booked on the basis of statements given by officials who were responsible for tampering with the record. The SIU registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Mr Hijazi under Sections 466, 471 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) read with Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act on July 10, 2017.

He was arrested on July 21 and remained under physical custody till July 29 and in judicial custody till August 8 before being released on bail.

The petition argued that Mr Hijazi had been subjected to and had become victim of a mala fide investigation by the prosecution.

“The charges framed under the FIR were motivated by enmity, malice and ulterior motives on part of the prosecution and also the prosecution witnesses.”

The petition added: “It is an admitted fact that the petitioner is a public servant whereas Section 466 makes the offence of forging a document applicable to a person who has done so by purporting the document to be made by public servant in his official capacity.”

The provisions of section 466, it said, therefore, could not be applied in the case against Mr Hijazi.

Section 471 of the PPC relating to the use of a forged document as genuine is also not made out and the applicability of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1947 section relating to criminal misconduct was also misguided and entirely immaterial to the case.

The petition said as the chairman Mr Hijazi neither had the intention nor in reality any benefit accrued to him for making a backdated entry in the impugned document. The “petitioner had never passed any direction as alleged,” it contended.

The petition said the registration of the FIR appeared to be a misuse of the process of law and was without any legal justification.

The FIA in its final inquiry report stated that Mr Hijazi had been found guilty “in violation of the provisions of the Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan Act 1997” but the impugned recommendation had strangely been made for a criminal case to be registered under 466/471 PPC read with 5(2) PCA, 1947, it added.

Since, it said, the alleged findings were under the SECP Act 1997, the matter should have been proceeded under the provisions of that Act.

Special Judge Central Iram Niazi while granting bail to Mr Hijazi noted that “it has yet to be ascertained if Mr Hijazi pressured his subordinates, or closure of the record in backdates was made with consensus by all of them.”

Her judgment noted that a tentative look at the evidence showed that the closing note of backdate was made after meetings and full discussions among SECP officials - Maheen Fatima, Tariq Ahmed, Ali Azeem, Tahir Mahmood and Abid Hussain - “as these persons also signed the same likewise applicant.”

“All of them are sailors of same boat,” the judge had observed in the order.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2017