Ephedrine case: Shahabuddin challenges freezing of bank accounts
Federal Minister for Textile Industries Makhdoom Shahabuddin, an accused in the Ephedrine case, has challenged the order of freezing his bank accounts in the Rawalpindi Bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) — a plea the court admitted.
On Thursday, Shahabuddin approached the LHC against the orders of the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) blocking all of his 22 accounts in various banks after he was accused of allocating huge quotas of ephedrine in violation of rules and regulations.
Justice Sagheer Ahmed Qadri and Justice Ali Baqir Najafi conducted the preliminary hearing of the petition filed by Advocate Abdul Rasheed Sheikh and issued notices to the ANF directing the investigation force to submit their response by October 10, the next date of hearing.
After hearing the initial arguments from Advocate Sheikh, the bench summoned ANF’s special public prosecutor Chaudhry Zahid, and directed him to file the response from relevant authorities on the next date of hearing.
Citing ANF’s Rawalpindi regional director, assistant director assets investigations and managers of the 22 banks situated in Rahim Yar Khan as respondents, Shahabuddin challenged the legality of a letter issued to the banks by ANF on June 22, 2012, directing all the bank managers to provide details of all accounts owned by him and his relatives.
Earlier, the ANF froze his bank accounts and directed the bank managers to not let the former minister withdraw any money from the accounts.
In the written petition, the federal minister contended that under Section 37 of the Control of Narcotics Substance Act 1997, the ANF could only forfeit the bank accounts after getting permission from the relevant trial court.
He stated that in the letter written, ANF officials had only mentioned the sections seeking information of his accounts and could not have directed the banks to seize them.
The minister’s lawyer further argued that his client possessed an unblemished reputation in his constituency and all money and assets owned by him were legitimate as he had been a successful agriculturalist.
The petitioner prayed the court to declare the letter null and void.Admitting his plea, the court issued notices to the ANF, seeking a reply by October 10.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 5th, 2012.
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