Plea against Khanani & Kalia directors’ acquittal dismissed

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday dismissed the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) appeal against the acquittal of the directors of the money exchange company Khanani & Kalia in a multi-billion-dollar money laundering scam as the FIA failed to provide sufficient evidence to get an order for a retrial.

The FIA had challenged the acquittal of the money exchange company’s directors Hanif S Kalia, Abdul Munaf Kalia, Javed Khanani, Atif Aziz Polani and others by a special court for banking offences on March 4, 2011. They were prosecuted by the investigation agency on charges of running an illegal foreign exchange and parallel banking network.

According to the FIA, the Khanani & Kalia directors were involved in illegal transfers of massive foreign exchange amounts in collusion with different exchange companies, money changers and business persons.

The investigation agency claimed that the Khanani & Kalia directors received amounts from overseas Pakistanis through foreign exchange companies on their behalf for remitting.

However, the FIA further alleged, instead of transferring these amounts to Pakistan through authorised banks duly declared by the State Bank of Pakistan, they used to retain the same abroad or transfer the money to foreign currency accounts secretly opened in collusion with persons in order to conceal the remittance.

The prosecution claimed that the Khanani & Kalia directors held the foreign currency and did not sell or declare it to the State Bank, while an equivalent amount payable against the remittance was distributed in Pakistan to recipients, depriving foreign currency exchange and remittances to the tune of billions of dollars.

The FIA’s deputy director requested that the high court set aside the trial court’s order because the prosecution had sufficient evidence to prove its case.

The defendants’ counsel Hummal Zubedi said that the investigation agency had listed more than 100 witnesses but examined only 42 of them in the trial court.

Zubedi said that none of the prosecution witnesses, except two investigating officers, spoke against the defendants, adding that this demonstrates that the prosecution has miserably failed to discharge its burden and set up the case beyond reasonable doubt against the accused.

After hearing the arguments of the appeal, the SHC’s division bench headed by Justice Aftab Ahmed Gorar dismissed the appeal over reasons to be recorded later on.