KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Friday set aside an order issued by an accountability court regarding acquittal of former chairman of National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) and another official in a land scam case.

In December 2014, an accountability court had allowed the acquittal applications of former NICL chief Ayaz Khan Niazi and director Syed Hur Riahi Gardezi in a reference pertaining to their alleged involvement in causing a loss of Rs1.9 billion to the exchequer while purchasing an office space for the company in Dubai in July 2009.

After the acquittal, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had filed an appeal before the SHC.

On Friday, a two-judge SHC bench headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro set aside the verdict and directed the Accountability Court-III to conduct afresh the trial of both the suspects.

The division bench in its order observed that the trial court acted in a hasty manner and exonerated both men even before their indictment.

The high court has sent the case to an accountability court for fresh trial

It added that the trial court should not show undue haste in allowing the acquittal pleas and must provide a reasonable opportunity to the prosecution to produce the evidence.

The acquittal applications were placed before the trial court under Section 265-K (power of court to acquit accused at any stage) of the Criminal Procedure Code on Dec 22, 2014 and both pleas were allowed on the same day, the bench said, adding: “We are at loss to understand why such haste was enforced by the trial court.”

It further observed that the reference was transferred to the AC-III in Jan 2014, but the indictment of the suspects was deferred mostly due to the absence of the defence counsel and since the documentary evidence was in Dubai, the prosecution needed more time to produce the same in court.

The bench further stated that the Federal Investigation Agency had illegally activated the investigation without following the procedure, which seriously compromised the investigation of these cases and subsequently the Supreme Court had transferred the investigation from FIA to NAB in Nov 2013.

“The trial court’s approach in white-collar crime shall be dynamic and it should ignore technicalities for deciding such cases on merit,” it added.

The bench observed that the trial court completely lost sight of the facts and circumstances under which the apex court had directed NAB to take over the investigation and proceed with such cases in accordance with law.

Earlier, NAB prosecutors Munsif Jan and Yasir Siddique argued that the trial court exonerated both the suspects without allowing NAB to produce the evidence, which was a miscarriage of justice.

They added that sufficient documentary evidence was available against the suspects.

Defence lawyers Amir Raza Naqvi and Makhdoom Ali Khan argued that a fair opportunity was provided to the investigating officer but he failed to produce any evidence.

NAB in the reference said that the suspects in collusion with each other had purchased an office space in Dubai for NICL in July 2009 which caused a loss of Rs1.9bn.

The former NICL chief and other officials are also facing other references before the accountability courts regarding alleged embezzlement of NICL funds.

On an apex court directive, Zafar Mehmood, the then federal commerce secretary, sent a written complaint to the FIA on Nov 16, 2010 in which he asked the agency to probe all purchases of land at various places and on different times by the NICL.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2018