Moonis Elahi no more proclaimed offender

LAHORE: An additional district and sessions judge (AD&SJ) on Wednesday revoked the arrest warrants of PML-Q leader Moonis Elahi in National Insurance Corporation Limited (NICL) scam.

The court also suspended the orders by Judicial Magistrate Irfan Basra for starting proceedings to declare Moonis Elahi as a proclaimed offender (PO) in the NICL scam.

AD&SJ Muhammad Yousaf passed the order on a petition filed by Moonis through his counsel Aamir Saeed submitting that the FIA authorities concerned had misguided the court just for getting arrest warrants of Moonis on January 28.

He said that the FIA had summoned Moonis to join investigation of NICL scam and a representative of his client had submitted a written reply to the FIA on January 27 wherein it was stated that his client was not in Pakistan and would join the investigation within seven days but the FIA got the arrest warrants on the very next day which was a violation of the law.

The counsel pointed out that since the FIA had obtained the arrest warrants by misguiding the magisterial court, therefore, subsequent proceedings of declaring Moonis as a PO were nullified according to the law.

The FIA counsel had also submitted a written reply in this regard.

Earlier, the court reserved the decision after hearing both the parties which was announced here today.

A judicial magistrate, Irfan Basra, had started proceedings to declare PML-Q leader Chaudhry Moonis Elahi as a proclaimed offender (PO) in the National Insurance Corporation Ltd scam by issuing non-bailable arrest warrants for Moonis Elahi.

Moonis Elahi is one of the key accused in National Insurance Corporation (NIC) scam and his arrest warrant had already been issued by the court due to his non appearance before the investigation team of FIA.