KARACHI: Customs Taxation and Anti-Smuggling Court Judge Syed Faiz Rasool Rashdi has directed the investigation officer to write to the bank to unfreeze the accounts of the absconding accused, Bashir Dawood and Mariyam Dawood.
Earlier, the bank accounts of the suspects were frozen during the pendency of the case for recovery of Rs 6, 204, 374. The suspects were booked in a case of concealment of their income, furnishing inaccurate particulars of their wealth and alleged involvement in money laundering to set up an offshore company.
During the hearing, Ashiq Ali Anwar Rana, special prosecutor of the Customs Department and Investigation Officer Muhammad Arif appeared before the court and moved an application for withdrawal of complaint under section 22 (2) of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010.
After the hearing, the court observed in its order” “Hyder Ali Dhaejo, director/ complainant, directorate of intelligence and investigation-IR Karachi filed the above complaint on 16/11/2016, and statement of the complainant was recorded on 16/11/2016. The notices were issued to the respondents as well as their advocates who time to time sought adjournments for making payments/ settlement. On 28/4/2017 the attorney namely Lt Col Aijaz Ahmed Malik (R) submitted four cheques drawn in different banks total amounting Rs. 6, 204, 374, 789. The special prosecutor presented and undertook on 28/04/2017 and when letter is received from higher authorities regarding withdrawal of the present case, the same shall be withdrawn.
In view of the above submission, the complaint is dismissed as withdrawn with directions to handover the above mentioned cheques to investigation officer after proper receipt and investigation. The officer is also directed to issue a letter to the bank concerned for unfreezing of the bank accounts henceforth which were frozen earlier during the pendency of the case, for recovery of Rs 6, 204, 374, 789 and after recovery of the said amount in favour of the government exchequer, the account holders shall be entitled to operate their accounts at their free well.”
Earlier, investigation officer had filed an application before the court for attachment of property and bank accounts under section 8 of the anti-money laundering act, 2010 in order to protect the public exchequer and also had informed the court that above named accused persons are absconders, therefore, court had allowed to IO for attachment of their bank accounts as case property for 30 days.
According to the prosecution, case no 01/2016 was registered against them alleging that the accused persons having offshore company and involved concealing the income approximately Rs. 9,870 million and amount of income tax sought to be evaded of Rs. 2, 469 million and amount of income tax recoverable (up to tax year 2014) Rs. 2, 467 million along with default surcharge & penalty to be determined at the time of payment.
Case was registered in violation of under section 111 (1) (d) (1) of the income tax ordinance 2001, liable to be prosecuted under section 192 a ibid read with section 2 and 8 (2) of the AMP act 2010.
