Former SECP chairman gets bail in record tampering case

ISLAMABAD: Former SECP chairman Zafar Hijazi was granted bail on Tuesday in a case pertaining to altering the record of the Sharif family’s companies, ARY News reported.

The court granted bail to the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan’s (SECP) former chief Hijazi against two surety bonds of Rs500,000 each.

Hijazi was arrested on July 21 after Special Judge Central Tahir Mehmood declined his plea for bail extension.

Hijazi has been booked in a case following the Supreme Court’s order in the Panama Papers implementation case for allegedly tampering with financial records of the Sharif’s companies.

A four-member FIA team, constituted by the apex court to look into the JIT’s allegations, had proved the record tampering claims.

It found chairman SECP Hijazi guilty of record tampering and recommended criminal proceedings against him and two of his subordinates – Ali Azeem and Maheen Fatima – under Section  466, 472, PPC read with 5(2) Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) 1947.

SECP Director Maheen Fatima had accused the SECP chairman of exerting intense pressure on her to blame the Panamagate JIT of misbehaving with her during an interrogation session.

In her statement to the probing team, she asserted that the money laundering investigation against Chaudhry Sugar Mills was closed on the chairman’s directives.

The director has further accused the chairman of threatening her with dire consequences including transfer to Gilgit-Baltistan on defiance of his orders.

The Panamagate JIT had previously complained to the top court that SECP had allegedly tampered with the record, apparently to favour the Sharif family who owns Chaudhry Sugar Mills.