FIA allowed to arrest Unity Foods’ CEO in graft case

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has suspended an administrative order of a magistrate exonerating the chief executive officer of a private firm in a graft case, and allowed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to arrest him for interrogation. The court was informed, however, that the suspect had obtained interim pre-arrest bail until Sept 14. The high court ruled that, following suspension of the magistrate’s order, any subsequent bail order in the matter would have no legal effect. On Aug 30, a judicial magistrate (Karachi East) discharged Muhammad Farrukh Amin Godil, CEO of Unity Foods Limited, a listed company operating in the edible oil and rice sectors, after refusing the FIA’s request for his physical remand for further interrogation and investigation. Other suspects, including Jalees Edhi, Amir Shehzad, Safdar Sajjad and Abdul Majeed Ghaziani, were remanded in FIA custody.

The state, through Additional Attorney General Barrister Mohsin Shahwani, subsequently filed a criminal miscellaneous application challenging the magistrate’s order. SHC suspends magistrate’s order exonerating Godil, says subsequent bail order against suspect has no legal effect He argued that the magistrate had misapplied an April order of the SHC restraining authorities from taking coercive action against the suspect. The AAG said that order had no nexus with the present case and had been passed in a separate inquiry under the money-laundering law. He contended that Mr Godil was a primary accused in an FIR concerning alleged corporate crime and that the magistrate should not have discharged him without considering the distinction between the two matters. A single-judge bench headed by Justice Miran Muhammad Shah observed that the magistrate was duty-bound to decide the remand matter urgently…