Inquiry ordered as passport goes missing

Lawyer allegedly pocketed passport of client accused of passport violation.

LAHORE:

A civil judge has been deputed to investigate an incident where a lawyer apparently stole the passport of his client, who had been arrested for allegedly having fake stamps on his passport, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The judge will also look at the role of a court record keeper, who had handed the lawyer the case file containing the passport in question.

Last week, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) produced the accused, Ishtiaq Ahmed Qadri, in the court of Judicial Magistrate Irfan Basra for case proceedings. But the judge was engaged in a video trial so the proceedings had to be postponed.

After FIA officials left the courtroom, Qadri’s lawyer Sikandar-i-Azam Rana asked court staffer Saeed Ahmed for the case files. Ahmed, the court’s record keeper but acting as reader on that day because of the reader’s absence, brought in the case file. No one else was in the room at the time the advocate was reading the file, according to Ahmed.

Rana read the file for around 20 minutes. Ahmed says he stepped into the judge’s retiring room for five minutes, and when he came back the lawyer was gone.

Then when he checked the file, the passport of the accused, confiscated by FIA authorities, was missing. Ahmed says he rushed outside but could not see the lawyer.

The judicial magistrate later informed District and Sessions Judge Abdul Waheed Khan of the incident, which he said happened between 2pm and 2:45pm while he was away at the video trial. Khan has assigned the Lahore senior civil judge to conduct an inquiry against the record keeper.

Qadri was arrested at Allama Iqbal International Airport after immigration authorities found allegedly fake stamps on his passport. Qadri, who was returning from Glasgow, Scotland, was booked under Section 6 of the Passport Act.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th,  2011.