ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) has remanded a case back to the Peshawar High Court (PHC) with a direction to reconsider its earlier condition to a petition of surrendering crypto currency code – a password to access digital currency account –for securing its integrity.

In a judgement authored by Justice Athar Minallah, the SC also directed the high court to seek assistance of an expert while deciding the matter to set out reasonable conditions to prevent petitioner Mohammad Taimur from having access to the currency.

Justice Minallah was a member of a three-judge Supreme Court bench consisting of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel that had taken up an appeal by Mohammad Taimur against the Jan 11, 2023 PHC order.

The case at hand concerns an inquiry initiated by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) regarding alleged involvement of an unregistered entity, Messers Pslashuk – a company operating and managing an online business in the nature of a Ponzi scheme that attracts the offence of cheating the public at large.

Consequently, the petitioner was arrested on June 2, 2021 during the inquiry proceedings who initially sought bail on merits, which was declined by PHC on Oct 5, 2021. But after some time, the petitioner filed a petition before the judge of an accountability court, seeking bail on the grounds of delay in the conclusion of the trial, which was refused, and consequently the petition was dismissed.

The high court later allowed bail, subject to furnishing bail bonds with two sureties but PHC made the release of the petitioner conditional requiring him to surrender his passport and crypto-currency code to NAB’s Investigating Officer (IO). His name was also ordered to be placed on the exit control list.

In its order, Justice Minallah observed that while granting bail the high court made certain conditions like surrendering the crypto-currency code. It was the case of the petitioner that he had no nexus with the alleged crypto-currency and, therefore, the condition was harsh and excessive and thus amounts to denying him the concession of bail granted by PHC.

However, the prosecution wants to ensure that the evidence in the form of crypto currency was not tampered with. The factum whether the petitioner has the ability to access the crypto-currency could not have been decided at the bail stage because it would require deeper appreciation of evidence, which is yet to be recorded during the trial, the judgment said adding the condition, therefore, appears to be excessive and unreasonable because it denies the petitioner the right to liberty.

Moreover, there are more than 1,500 witnesses on the list of the prosecution who would be entering the witness box. Therefore, the early conclusion of the trial seems not foreseeable, the judgement added.

On the other hand, the concern of the prosecution is regarding the likelihood of the petitioner’s access to crypto currency, the judgement said. The mobile phone and the SIM card were seized and they were in NAB’s custody, the judgement stated, adding the IO had already admitted that if the SIM could be blocked, it would serve the purpose since in such an event, access of the petitioner to the crypto currency would be denied.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2023