Record tampering: SECP chairman gets one-week transit bail

ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court on Tuesday granted transit bail to Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) chairman Zafar Hijazi for one week in a case pertaining to tampering with the records of the Sharif family’s companies.

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

The applicant assured the judge that he would not leave the capital city without court permission.

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

It found chairman Hijazi guilty of record tampering and recommended criminal action 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.

Earlier, 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. The court had then formed a team of the FIA to probe into the allegations.

Record tampering controversy deepened when SECP claimed it had closed the probe against Chaudhry Sugar Mills in 2013 on money laundering charges, before the PML-N came to power, but signatures on the documents showed the inquiry was closed in 2016.