KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday accepted the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) appeal against the acquittal of Axact Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shoaib Sheikh in a money laundering case, setting aside an earlier decision by a district and sessions court.
The case will be heard again by the trial court, the SHC ordered.
Following the acceptance of the appeal, FIA officials set up pickets at the court’s exits to arrest Sheikh since he has yet to be granted bail.
The Axact chief is currently inside the court’s premises with his lawyers who are insisting that the court has not ordered Sheikh’s arrest and that he should be given time to approach the courts for bail.
A district and sessions court had acquitted Shoaib Sheikh in a money laundering case in 2016. However, the Supreme Court took notice of the issue after the fake degree scandal involving Axact re-emerged last month, directing Sindh and Islamabad high courts to to promptly decide on the pending cases regarding Axact.
The Axact CEO has been accused by the FIA of having illegally transferred Rs170.17 million to a Dubai-based firm, Chanda Exchange Company, in April 2014.
The Axact scandal surfaced in May 2015, when The New York Timespublished a report that claimed the company sold fake diplomas and degrees online through hundreds of fictitious schools, making “tens of millions of dollars annually”.
Subsequently, the offices of Axact were sealed, its CEO and key officials were arrested and a probe was launched on the basis of the allegations leveled by NYT.
In January, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar took suo motu notice of the Axact fake degree scandal after international news reports said over 3,000 UK citizens had purchased fake degrees from Axact in 2013 and 2014.
The news came just months after an in-depth investigation by Canada’s national broadcaster uncovered that hundreds of people working in diverse fields across Canada possess bogus degrees issued by Axact.
In its last hearing, the court had ordered the Sindh and Islamabad high courts to promptly decide on the pending cases regarding Axact.
The chief justice had directed the SHC to constitute a bench to hear the case within a week and give the verdict within two weeks.
