Former director general (DG) health Dr Asad Hafeez, accused of allocating excessive quantities of ephedrine for export to two pharmaceutical companies, filed for post-arrest bail on medical grounds on Wednesday.
Dr Hafeez, who is undergoing treatment at Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology, has requested the Control of Narcotics Substance (CNS) court to grant him bail as he is too ill to be jailed.
In his petition, Dr Hafeez requested the court to form a medical board to conduct a detailed examination to determine his condition.
CNS Judge Zaffar Iqbal Chaudhry issued notices to Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) and asked it to produce the relevant records on Friday.
ANF has accused the former DG of granting excessive allocations of ephedrine for export, a controlled chemical, to two pharmaceutical companies, one from Islamabad and the other from Multan in 2010.
The investigators have charged the former DG health of violating rules to grant ephedrine allocations.
Two other suspects, former Cann Pharmaceutical chief executive Hashim Ali Khan and former Danas Pharma employee Ahsanuddin also filed for bail. The court directed the ANF to respond to the bail plea of the two men on Thursday.
Meanwhile, a division bench of the Lahore High Court adjourned hearing of the bail plea of former deputy drug controller Abdul Sattar Surani, an accused in ephedrine case, till Tuesday. Justice Khawaja Imtiaz Ahmed and Justice Ibadur Rehman Lodhi of LHC’s Rawalpindi bench deferred the hearing due to the absence of ANF prosecutor Wasim Ahmed.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 16th, 2012.
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