The banking court acquitted PPP leader Faryal Talpur and 13 other accused in the fake bank accounts case, while the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) gave a clean chit to the accused in its final report, citing lack of evidence.
Cases were registered against President Asif Ali Zardari, Faryal Talpur and others for allegedly opening fake bank accounts and using them for illegal transactions worth billions of rupees.
In 2018, a joint investigation team (JIT) formed by the Supreme Court had declared at least 29 bank accounts fake, and claimed in its report that these accounts were used to launder money worth Rs42 billion.
The Supreme Court had sent the JIT report and the evidence collected by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for further investigation in January 2019, but the cases were later transferred to the Karachi Banking Court for further proceedings.
After hearing the FIA investigation officer and the state prosecutor, special court judge Javed Ahmed Kewar approved the final charge sheet, in which 14 people, including Faryal Talpur, were placed in column two due to lack of evidence and ordered their release.
The final investigation report named President Zardari, Anwar Majeed, Zain Malik, Hussain Lawai and others as accused. However, in the previous hearing, President Zardari had claimed presidential immunity before the court under Article 248 of the Constitution and requested the court to stay the criminal proceedings against him in the present case.
The court order said that according to the investigation officer, accused Bilal Sheikh and Iqbal Aryan had died during the trial, due to which the cases against them were closed.
The court said that initially Faryal Talpur’s name was listed as an accused in the interim charge sheet, but on her request, a detailed examination of her role in the case was conducted.
She claimed that there was a legitimate business transaction of Rs 3 crore attributed to her with Omni Group Sugar Mills, while providing documents related to the sale of sugarcane crop cultivated on her agricultural land.
The order said that this claim is also confirmed by the NAB investigation report, in which her claim under the title Zardari Group Private Limited has been accepted, and the investigation officer has confirmed that no objectionable evidence was found against Faryal Talpur, and the documents submitted in support of her application appear to be credible on the basis of the testimonies.
The court said that the final charge sheet reflects the thorough investigation conducted at various forums, the reasons for not trying the 14 people include the status of witnesses, involvement in separate inquiries or absence of concrete evidence.
