Court cancels arrest warrant for Moonis Elahi

An additional district and sessions judge has revoked the arrest warrant of Moonis Elahi.

LAHORE: An additional district and sessions judge on Wednesday revoked the arrest warrants of Moonis Elahi in connection with his alleged involvement in the National Insurance Corporation Limited (NICL) scam.

The court also suspended orders by Judicial Magistrate Irfan Basra for starting proceedings to declare Moonis Elahi a proclaimed offender in the case.

The additional district and sessions judge Muhammad Yousaf passed the order on a petition filed by Moonis Elahi through his counsel Aamir Saeed submitting that the Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) had misguided the court just for getting arrest warrants of Moonis on January 28.

He said that the FIA had summoned Moonis to join the investigations and a representative of his client had submitted a written reply to the FIA on January 27 wherein it was stated that his client was not in Pakistan and would join the investigations within seven days but the FIA issued the arrest warrant the very next day which was a violation of the law.

The counsel pointed out that since the FIA had obtained the arrest warrants by misguiding the magisterial court, subsequent proceedings of declaring Moonis as an offender were nullified according to the law.

The FIA counsel had also submitted a written reply in this regard.

Moonis Elahi, who returned from England today, while speaking to the media at the airport in Karachi today said he had "come back to give a formidable reply to all the allegations against me and my party, and very soon we will expose all those who are involved in this conspiracy".

Earlier, the court reserved the decision after hearing both the parties which was announced here today.

A judicial magistrate, Irfan Basra, had started proceedings to declare Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leader Moonis Elahi a aproclaimed offender by issuing non-bailable arrest warrants for him.