Sources informed Customs Today that the Investigation Officer (IO) of AIB at the time of submission of interim report/challan into the case, appealed the court to handover the accused Muhammad Ali Chandna to the AIB/R&D of MCC-Appraisement (West) for investigation.

The judge of Customs Court on May 6 directed the lawyer of Muhammad Ali Chandna to present the accused within 10 days and also signed the undertaking in this regard.

According to details, the time limit of presenting the accused as per commitment by the lawyer would be ended at May 16. However, the AIB has decided to remind the court about handing over the accused to the IO.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Appraising Intelligence Branch (AIB) of Model Customs Collectorate-MCC Appraisement (West) has expedited its pace of investigation into import of banned pharmaceutical case.

The Investigation Officer (IO) into the said case has already presented the interim report/challan before the Customs Court on May-6 (Wednesday), in which he stated entire details of the case and demanded judicial remand of prime accused into the case namely Muhammad Ali Chandna.

In the interim report, the investigation officer of AIB-MCC Appraisement (West) stated that the accused importer M/s Pure Enterprises was attempted to clear banned pharmaceutical including aspirin and paracetamol in the garb of SDO555, SDO333 and SDO222 by declaring untrue classification.

It may be mentioned here that the R&D Section of MCC-Appraisement (East) was also succeeded to arrest Muhammad Ali Chandna, who supposed to be a prime suspect in entire scam. However; the accused Muhammad Ali Chandna later got protective bail from Customs Court against the security deposit of Rs5 million.