Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The State Bank of Pakistan has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court, asking the court to set aside its April 28 order wherein it rejected bank officials’ replies and decided to indict them over violation of a 2006 judgement in a money laundering case.

On April 28, a two-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan decided to indict four officials — FBR Second Secretary Dr Sadiqullah, SBP Policy Department Joint Director Exchange Aftab Iqbal Siddiqui, SBP Direct Syed Samad Hussain and Customs Additional Collector Abdur Razzaq — over alleged violation of the court’s 10-year old verdict on money laundering.

The bench appointed Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf as a prosecutor. Deputy Attorney General Sohail Mehmood appeared on behalf of the federal government.

Now the SBP, through its counsel Khawaja Muhammad Farooq, has filed an Intra-Court Appeal (ICA) under Section 19(1)(iii) of the Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003 against the court’s April 28 order to indict two of its officials.

The ICA stated that the SBP had no role whatsoever in return of currency. Even the NoC demanded by the customs authorities for return of foreign currency was not required under any provision of law. “The return of foreign currency was exclusively within the jurisdiction of customs authorities/FBR and the SBP had no authority to direct the return of currency,” said the ICA.

The contempt of court proceeding was initiated by former chief justice Nasir-ul-Mulk on an anonymous letter written in Urdu language and titled Jail Companion. According to the letter, a passenger Allah Baash was arrested at the Islamabad airport while trying to smuggle $100,000 and 2,600 Chinese Yuan in August 2006. The customs department confiscated the amount and registered a money laundering case.

The anonymous letter said the FBR through its notification of Aug 18, 2010 and the SBP through its order of Sept 15, 2010 ordered regularisation of the foreign currency seized by the customs department on charges of money laundering. A no objection certificate was issued by important government departments and the money was released despite the fact that a special customs judge of Rawalpindi on May 29, 2010 awarded five-year jail and imposed Rs500,000 fine on the accused.

According to the letter, the then SBP joint director Aftab Siddiqui issued an NoC for regularisation of the aforementioned currency in connivance with former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani.

“The matter went even up to the level of the acting governor of the SBP and the NoC was issued, as the legal function of the bank was to prevent outflow of foreign currency from Pakistan,” the ICA stated.

The SBP pointed out that it was a normal practice for the superior courts not to rely on anonymous complaints without verifying the identity of the complainant and content of the complaint, adding that no such exercise was undertaken before issuing notices to the bank executives.

The SBP has contended that there is no violation of the court order in this case and no contempt case is made out under the provisions of Section 3 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003.

The ICA stated that this contempt did not fall under the definition of judicial contempt or criminal contempt as defined under Section 3 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003. It stated that the bench, before summoning the bank officials, had not given due consideration to their replies to the show cause notices.