Sugar scam cases: Jehangir, son get extension in interim bail

LAHORE (APP): Prominent politician and industrialist Jehangir Tareen and his son, Ali Tareen , on Saturday get extension in their interim bail from two courts in three cases registered by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)  in connection with sugar scam.

Earlier, the two along with their counsel appeared before Additional District and Sessions Judge Hamid Hussain on expiry of their interim bail.

The counsel for petitioners argued before the court that on April 9, his clients appeared before the FIA on being summoned. It appears that the FIA will summon them again, he added. He also requested the court to delay the next hearing for long time in view of Coronavirus pandemic.

At this stage, the court questioned whether the FIA had any objection on its jurisdiction in the cases.

To this, a representative of the FIA stated that the agency did not have any objection on jurisdiction of the court. However,  he pleaded with the court to direct the accused for joining the investigations.

Subsequently, the court directed the FIA to apprise about the role attributed to the accused and asked Tareen and his son to join the investigations, besides extending their interim bail in two cases till April 22.

Meanwhile, a special court of banking offence also extended interim bail of Jehangir Tareen and Ali Tareen till April 17 in third case.

Judge Ameer Muhammad Khan conducted the case proceedings. The counsel for petitioners argued before the court that the two appeared before the FIA and joined investigations. He submitted that his clients would provide further documents to the agency on next appearance.

However, an assistant director legal on behalf the FIA raised objection on jurisdiction of the court, saying that it was not empower to hear the matter.

At this, the court sought arguments from parties on issue of jurisdiction and extended interim bail of the two till April 17.

The FIA had registered a total of three FIRs against Jahangir Tareen, his son Ali Tareen, and others under charges of money laundering, misappropriation of shareholders money and fraud in the sugar scam.

Two FIRs were registered under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating of public shareholders) and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), read with sections 3/4 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

In third case, it was alleged that accused Tareen fraudulently misappropriated money of shareholders after his company (JDW group) transferred Rs.3.14 billion to an associated private company identified as Farooqi Pulp Private Limited (FPML). The FIR stated that the private company is owned by his sons and close relatives.