ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) team probing allegations of record tampering against high ups of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has decided to conduct forensic analysis of the relevant record.
The FIA team has not concluded the inquiry and will take some time to complete the probe as it has decided to conduct forensic analysis of the commission’s online data as well as files containing the record of the inquiry regarding Chaudhry Sugar Mills owned by the Sharif family, sources informed The Nation.
The FIA has recorded statements of a number of officials of the SECP getting “oral evidence” to complete the probe but keeping in view the standard operating procedures (SOPs) of the agency to hold an inquiry, the team will have to hold a forensic analysis of the record, a senior official of the agency commented.
The agency is holding an investigation into the allegations against the SECP that the money-laundering probe initiated by the commission against Chaudhry Sugar Mills in 2011 was verbally closed in 2013 but it was closed in files in 2016 backdated.
A four-member FIA team was constituted before Eidul Fitr to probe the allegations levelled by the joint investigation team (JIT) that the SECP was involved in tampering the record regarding money trail of the assets of the Sharif family.
The JIT had levelled these allegations in its report submitted to the Supreme Court bench overseeing the implementation of the Panama case verdict and the apex court ordered the FIA to probe charges against the SECP chairman and its directors.
The team headed by the agency’s Anti-Corruption Wing Director Maqsoodul Hasan also comprises deputy directors Hazrat Ali, Ayaz Khan and Tahir Tanvir.
Meanwhile, the SECP chairman has also recorded his statement before the FIA. “I have explained my position to the FIA team, which was also reflected to some extent in a section of press,” said SECP Chairman Zafar Hijazi in an official statement.
“Since the inquiry proceedings are continuing, I am not supposed to give any version publicly. However, once the inquiry would be completed, I will definitely explain my position publicly to my countrymen,” it said.
“Here I would merely say that anti-money laundering proceedings and the proceeding under Section 263 of the Companies Ordinance 1984 are entirely different matters and should not be mixed,” he said.
Secondly, a head of any organisation cannot suppose to be aware of any deficiencies or short comings in a particular case file nor he can be considered responsible for any such deficiency or wrong doing.
If this precedent of allowing subordinates to apportion blame for their omissions or wrong doings is allowed to be set, every subordinate officer may attribute his failings to the heads of organisation, Hijazi in his statement said, pointing towards some media statements that a senior officer of the SECP had admitted before the JIT that he tampered with the record of the Chaudhry Sugar Mills under pressure from the chairman.
In addition to that, Fawad Chaudhry, the spokesperson of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), said that the “reports of tampering of the SECP’s record was a matter of serious concern and those involved in this heinous crime must be dragged to the dock of law.”
Chaudhry said that the PTI had maintained earlier that Nawaz Sharif would exploit state institutions to protect himself.
“Sharif brothers have deliberately appointed non-permanent heads of state institutions in order to control them and [to] interfere in the matters of the institutions,” he said, adding that the SECP chairman along with DGs of Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the FIA were non-permanent.
Chaudhry further said that despite those predicaments, people were looking forward to a fair end of Panama probe that would hopefully help root out corruption from the country.
