KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has granted bail to 16 interned officials of the National Bank of Pakistan and Hascol Petroleum Company Limited (HPCL) in a case pertaining to the Rs54 billion bank loan scam.

The SHC observed that some of the suspects, including the former president of the NBP, Saeed Ahmed Khan, had been named in the FIR with a particular role, but they had been let off by the Federal Investigation Agency, which was yet another circumstance sufficient to dilute severity of allegations against the remaining suspects and made their case to be of further enquiry.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro granted post-arrest bail to Aqeel Ahmed Khan, Tahir Ali, Tariq Jamali, Reema Athar, Saleem Butt, Wajahat Ahmed Baqai, Syed Jamal Baquar, Usman Shahid, Mohammad Saleem Saleemi, Muhammad Asmar Atiq, Muhammad Ali Haroon, Syed Hassan Irtiza Kazmi, Nawabzada Akbar Hussain, Saeed Ahmed, Muhammad Ali Ansari and Khurram Shahzad Venjhar against a surety bond of Rs1 million each.

It also confirmed the interim pre-arrest bail of Syed Ahmed Iqbal Ashraf and directed all the applicants to submit their passports with the nazir of the SHC.

The bench, in its order, noted that initially 32 suspects were named in the interim investigation report, and later, 16 of them were let off by the FIA in the final and supplementary reports.

It noted that the investigating officer, Zeeshan Shaikh, of the FIA was still not in a position to rule out a possibility of discharge of some of the suspects sent up by him for trial and this in turn would prima facie mean that investigation and its fallout was still undefined.

The IO submitted that the custody of the suspects was not required by him as for the time being investigation was over and the accused had fully cooperated with him.

The bench said when it asked the IO to explain the release of Mr Khan, he simply said that such suspect had informed him that he had acted on the note sheets prepared and sent to him by his subordinate staff and this, surprisingly, he found a reasonable justification to let him off.

“Further, the IO could not satisfy the court that responsibility of the exonerated accused is lesser or somehow different than the liability of the accused, who have been sent up by him for trial”, it added.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2023