FIA director issued show-cause in sugar scam case

A special court (offences in bank) served on Saturday a show-cause notice to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Punjab Director for his failure in the submission of challan (investigation report) in the money laundering and sugar scam inquiry against Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza.

The court sought a reply from the FIA chief by December 16 for not submitting a challan in the money laundering worth Rs16bn.

A day earlier, the FIA had completed its investigation into the allegations against the PML-N president and his son, Hamza Shehbaz, and declared that both had failed to present the money trail. However, both had secured pre-arrest bail in the case till Saturday while contending that the case was devoid of any factual ground.

They claimed that they had been implicated in a “forged case” with the intention to “humiliate” them.They maintained that allegations levelled on them by the “concerned quarters” were false and added that although they wished to appear before the investigation team, they feared being arrested at the hands of FIA as there are examples relating to their arrests when they had been summoned in a different case but arrested in another matter.

Also read: Shehbaz, Hamza granted pre-arrest bail in sugar scam case

At the previous hearing, the court had given the FIA the last chance to file the case challan as more than a year has elapsed without any significant progress on the case. Upon failure to submit the charge-sheet, the entire probe team would be served a show-cause notice, the judge warned.

The FIA had booked Shehbaz and his sons Hamza and Suleman in November 2020 under sections 419, 420, 468, 471, 34 and 109 – financial fraud, impersonation and forgery – of the PPC and 5(2) and 5(3) – criminal misconduct – of Prevention of Corruption Act and r/w 3/4 of Anti Money Laundering Act. Suleman Shehbaz is absconding in the UK.

According to the prosecution of the FIA, Sharif is accused of aiding and abetting his sons Shehbaz and Suleman Shahbaz in accumulating more assets than their declared sources of income. In 2019, an accountability court in Lahore on Monday declared Suleman a proclaimed offender in the case and issued fresh non-bailable arrest warrants against him.

During the proceedings, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has informed the court it had seized Suleman’s shares amounting to Rs2 billion in 16 companies.According to a NAB report, it also seized cash worth Rs4.1 million held in three banks accounts as well as $4,000 dollars in two different bank accounts of the suspect.