KARACHI: A two-member bench of the Supreme Court directed customs officials to verify the documents and submit it on next date of hearing on appeals filed by Sardar Amin Farooqui and Naimatullah Alvi, Principal Appraisers who were dismissed from service due to their involvement in Afghan Commercial containers pilferage scam.
On 23 July 2021 Justice Maqbool Baqar and Justice Sajjad Ali Shah heard the matter. During the hearing, counsel for the appellants argued that his counsels dismissed from service, however, service tribunal restored them and reduced their two grades.
He further argued that his clients were innocents and had been falsely implicated in this scam, therefore, court may set aside impugned judgment of the service tribunal and restore them on pervious grades.
It needs to be mentioned here that the accountability bureau had initiated the investigation in compliance with the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s order in the case of missing containers carrying the logistics for North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s and International Security Assistance Forces’ troops fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Supreme Court had assigned the inquiry to FTO Shoaib Suddle. He submitted the interim-report, but the investigations were then transferred to FBR on the request of FBR.
The Board submitted the report in this regard before the apex court. Afterwards, the investigations were assigned to NAB.
FTO Dr. Shoaib Suddle in his report mentioned 7,922 containers as missing. Average revenue per container was calculated at Rs2.4 million accounting for a revenue loss of Rs29 billion to the exchequer.
Hafiz Anees (late) heading FBR Committee formed to investigate the case reported pilferage of 28,000 containers and the criteria was that the containers who had made the trip to Afghanistan and came back to Karachi in eight days were marked. Sources said that this observation was the turning point as it ruined the investigations.
However, on the directives of Supreme Court, the NAB filed references pertaining to 7,922 containers, which were reported by the FTO as pilfered or missing.
