KDA chief moves SHC for quashment of criminal case

By Jamal Khurshid

September 23, 2017

The Sindh High Court has issued notices to the federal law officer and the Federal Investigation Agency on a petition filed by the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) director general requesting the court to quash the case accusing him of falsifying
information to obtain a passport.

Petitioner Syed Nasir Abbas, who was arrested by the FIA for allegedly concealing his government job and obtaining a passport by declaring himself a businessman, submitted in his petition that the investigation agency had illegally arrested him in the case.

Abbas said he was granted permission by the then provincial government in 1988 to obtain foreign citizenship after he married with a Canadian national. The applicant said that he himself did not apply for a Canadian passport or nationality.

He said the FIA did not produce a copy of passport he was accused of obtaining. The petitioner also questioned the federal agency’s authority to initiate proceedings against him on its own without receiving any complaint against him.

The counsel for the petitioner also challenged the arrest of his client without issuance of any notice or permission by the chief secretary, contending that the petitioner was a grade-20 officer of the provincial government. He requested the court to quash the case and grant his client bail in the case.

Headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, the SHC’s division bench after preliminary hearing of the petition issued notices to the federal law officer and the FIA and called their comments on September 26.

The FIA’s anti-human trafficking cell had booked the suspect under Section 6 (1) (a) (c) of the Passport Act, 1974. The act says, “A person shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to three years or with a fine or both if he uses a statement which he knows or believes to be false in any document for obtaining a passport or wilfully concealing any fact which under the circumstances he should disclose for obtaining a passport for himself or another person.”