Daily Times

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday rejected the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) plea to cancel the bail of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan in the prohibited funding case, stating that allegations made in the first information report (FIR) had nothing to do with Imran or Tariq Shafi. A division bench comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri issued a detailed decision rejecting the petition for the cancellation of Imran’s bail.

The court raised questions regarding the evidence of the case and said that there was “no proof” that the money sent by Arif Naqvi was linked with criminal activity. It added that the former premier had not signed any bank documents. According to the IHC, the banking court had rightly said that all the evidence in the case was documentary and an arrest was not necessary. The court maintained that the authority regarding the bank officials belonged to the State Bank of Pakistan, which neither made any inquiry nor declared any transaction received by PTI as illegal.

It continued that the investigating officer also did not record any statement of the SBP officials. One of the charges against Imran was to convert the PTI account to Naya Pakistan account which was deemed “not a crime”. The IHC stated that the Federal Investigation Agency could not substantially answer why the bail should be cancelled. The FIA had registered a case against Imran and ten others regarding claims of foreign funding and the case was registered by the FIA Corporate Banking Circle. The case’s FIR claimed that the accused breached the Foreign Exchange Act and were beneficiaries of a private bank account.