Dr Imran Farooq. PHOTO: FILE
A division bench, comprising Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi and Justice Athar Minallah, reserved the verdict after both the parties concluded their arguments in the case.
The court grilled the investigation agency for making several flaws in the investigation.
During the hearing, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)’s standing counsel, Khawaja Imtiaz, disclosed several “facts” in order to connect the suspect with the commission of offence in response to several queries raised by Ali’s counsel, Mansoor Afridi.
In his arguments, Afridi maintained that the FIA did not have an iota of evidence against Ali and delay in registering the case after five years was not explained.
He added that the FIA said that “further evidence” was required but no evidence at all had so far been produced before the court.
Afridi said that the interim charge sheet submitted before an anti-terrorism court (ATC) did not constitute any offence against Ali.
The FIA has cited 11 witnesses in the report, he said, and none of the witnesses have anything to disclose relating to the charges of conspiracy or abetment against his client.
Among other grounds, he said that the suspect had never been produced before the court since January 28, remand was extended on jail officials’ documents, no order was passed in this regard and no reasons for extension were given by the court.
“Detention is illegal as it is a violation of Section 344 of Code of Criminal Procedure,” he said. In reply, the FIA counsel said that three applications were moved for seeking extension in remand and the court accepted the requests. He, however, said that no orders were available to support his claim.
Court grills FIA
On the sole question where did one of the suspects, Kashif Kamran Khan, go, the court grilled the FIA.
While utilising his experience of 18 years of practice at criminal side, Justice Qureshi asked the FIA counsel, investigation officer, and a legal adviser why Kamran, who according to FIA is a co-accused and allegedly helped in killing Dr Farooq in UK, was not named in the charge sheet after he was nominated in the FIR.
The counsel replied that he had not yet been arrested and was apparently still on the run.
To this, Justice Qureshi remarked that the FIA was bound to add his name in the column for absconders, adding that the agency had not even marked the column in the charge sheet submitted before the court.
He said that the Islamabad wallahs (referring to the police and other investigation agencies) had invented a new thing: they did not even show column for the absconding suspects in the charge sheets and neither the courts nor the senior police officials had taken any notice of it.
“I have given observations in two to three cases but no one bothers to take action,” Justice Qureshi said.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 2nd, 2016.
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