LAHORE: An anti-corruption court in Lahore on Thursday acquitted all government officials accused in a case involving the alleged registration of more than 4,000 non-customs-paid vehicles.
The court ruled that the prosecution failed to prove the charges, bringing an end to a case that had been under trial for several years.
The case was originally registered in 2020 by the Anti-Corruption Establishment Punjab against 10 officials of the Excise Department. It alleged that thousands of vehicles were fraudulently registered using fake documents and were falsely declared as auctioned goods.
The verdict was announced by Judge Javed Iqbal Warraich, who, after reviewing the record and hearing arguments from both sides, concluded that the allegations could not be established beyond doubt.
Among those acquitted on Thursday were Excise Inspectors Abdul Waheed Mayo and Shahzad Safdar, former Motor Registration Authority in-charges Naeem Qadir and Adeel Amjad, data entry operators Adeel Ameen and Muhammad Zaigham Ali, and clerk Abdul Qadir. Four senior officials, including directors of the Excise Department, had already been acquitted earlier in the proceedings.
According to the prosecution, more than 4,000 non-custom-paid vehicles had been registered through forged vouchers. However, during the trial, the court found that the evidence presented was not sufficient to support these claims.
The case had drawn attention due to its scale and the involvement of multiple government officials, raising concerns at the time about possible irregularities in the vehicle registration system.
