District and sessions court: Cases of immigration fraud increasing

Judge says FIA uncooperative, FIA says complainants often stop pursuing cases.

LAHORE:

The district and sessions court is seeing an increasing number of petitions filed against immigration agents for alleged fraud, though in many cases, they appear to be a tactic used by customers to get their money back.

Thirty petitions were filed in September seeking cases against visa agents, 38 in October, 45 in November, 62 in December, 76 in January, and 43 in the first half of February, according to district and sessions court records.

The petitions largely follow the same pattern. A person approaches an agent seeking help to obtain a visa and pays a sum in advance. The visa does not arrive and the disgruntled customer moves a petition asking the court to direct the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to register a case against the agent. Most of the petitioners had sought to emigrate to the UK, Australia, Dubai, Malaysia and Germany.

The petitions filed in September accounted for around 35 per cent of the total number of petitions filed in cases in which the FIA has jurisdiction. In February so far, they account for 70 per cent of FIA-related cases.

The district and sessions court hears four types of cases in which the FIA has jurisdiction: petitions seeking FIRs of alleged visa fraud against immigration agents; petitions seeking fraud cases against bank employees who fall under the federal government; petitions seeking cases for misappropriating money against federal government employees; and petitions seeking FIRs against FIA officials.

In many cases, after obtaining the desired orders, the petitioners have returned to the courts with pleas asking that the FIA be instructed to comply with those court orders. District and Sessions Judge Malik Tariq Mehmood Zargham told The Express Tribune that FIA officials were uncooperative. The courts often sought compliance reports from FIA officials, but their orders were usually ignored. He said that the courts needed cooperation from all departments in order to dispense justice.

In one case, petitioner Muhammad Hafeez sought a case against Raja Abbas Ali, the director of the Association Network Community Empowerment (ANCE), registered as an NGO.

The ANCE was named in several other petitions too, in which the director allegedly took millions of rupees in return for the promise of visas. The court on October 25, 2012, directed the FIA director to look into the matter and redress the petitioner’s grievance. The petitioner returned to the court with a plea on November 7 seeking compliance of court orders. The court sought a report from FIA officials regarding the non-compliance, and issued several reminders, but to no avail.

An FIA official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the agency had a cell dedicated to such cases and it was working on them. “Sometimes there are delays in complying with court orders, but that does not mean the FIA is not working,” he said.

The official said that around 1,500 FIRs had been registered against immigration agents in the Punjab in the last five months, around 100 of them upon court orders. He said that more than 150 agents had been sentenced by the courts in the last four months, and over 500 in 2012.

He said that in many cases, the FIA did its work but the complainant dropped the case. Once an FIR was registered, the complainant would make a deal with the agent to withdraw if he got his money back, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2013.