LAHORE: A banking court on Saturday issued a show-cause notice to Federal Investigation Agency-Punjab (FIA) Director Zone-I Dr Rizwan Ahmad for not submitting the investigation report in the money laundering and sugar scam inquiry against Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz.
A prosecutor told the court that the investigation report was complete but will be submitted before the judge special court (Central-I). The FIA previously objected to the jurisdiction of the special court for banking offences to take up the matter.
Duty judge of the special court Aslam Gondal took exception to the prosecutor’s statement and observed that the FIA’s action was a violation of the court’s previous order.
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The judge further observed that the court was exercising restraint and not issuing a contempt notice to the prosecution team.
The judge adjourned the hearing for a short break as the prosecutor said the investigation report under section 173 Cr.P.C. will be submitted if the file was kept in wait for a while.
However, no one appeared on behalf of the FIA when the judge resumed hearing again.
A written order issued by the duty judge said: “The file has been taken up again but after some wait neither anyone has appeared on behalf of the prosecution nor a report under section 173 of Cr.P.C has been submitted or any reason for non-submission of challan has been furnished.”
The judge issued a show-cause notice to the director FIA Punjab Zone-I Lahore to explain why despite a court directive the challan had not been submitted and why the prosecutors had not appeared before the court later on.
The duty judge adjourned further hearing till Dec 16 and also extended the pre-arrest bail of Shehbaz and Hamza till the next hearing.
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Meanwhile, Judge Special Court (Central-I) Ijaz Hassan Awan also rejected the request of the FIA to let it submit the investigation report before his court.
Judge Awan observed that the petitions of the suspects for pre-arrest bail were pending before the special court for offences in the bank. He noted that the duty judge of the other court had directed the prosecutor to submit the report subject to the decision on the objection regarding the jurisdiction decided by the same court.
The judge remarked that his court could not receive the investigation report that should be filed before the same court hearing the bail petitions in the FIRs.
