Waseem Zeb Khan vs The Chairman, National Accountability Bureau, Nab
This matter concerns a petition for leave to appeal against the refusal of the High Court to grant post-arrest bail to the petitioner, who was accused of participating in a large-scale financial fraud involving a fake company, Space Construction Pvt. Ltd. The petitioner allegedly acted as a Senior Director, soliciting investments from the public under the guise of lucrative monthly profits, resulting in approximately 1,700 victims losing Rs. 1.7 billion. The core legal question was whether the petitioner was entitled to bail given his claims of innocence and the delay in filing the reference by the National Accountability Bureau. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, holding that the petitioner's active role in soliciting deposits, as evidenced by witness statements and the establishment of an office, outweighed his unsubstantiated claims of being a victim himself. The Court affirmed that where there is formidable evidence of involvement in a major financial scam, bail is not warranted. Furthermore, the Court expressed concern regarding the investigative agency's failure to recover assets, arrest co-accused, and file the reference in a timely manner.
- Whether a petitioner claiming to be a victim of a financial scam is entitled to bail when witness statements implicate them as a perpetrator?
- Does the failure of the National Accountability Bureau to file a reference within a reasonable time automatically entitle an accused to bail?
- Can an accused person's claim of innocence be sustained in the face of consistent witness statements regarding their active participation in a fraudulent scheme?
ORDER
QAZI M UHAM M AD AM IN AHM ED, J. Veiled behind a fake online company fraudulently shown to have been registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan with the name and style of Space Construction Pvt. Ltd., alongside the co-accused, the petitioner is part of the scam that lured people to invest against monthly profit at the rate of 21 % of the deposited amount. 1700 claimants parting with an amount of Rs. 1.7 billion fell in the trap before the hoax was detected, pursuant whereto, the petitioner was arrested on the 20th of May, 2021.
The mastermind behind the scam was Muhammad Taimoor who established online deceit through fake identity of Rabia Batool; the petitioner joined him in September 2019 and projected himself to the unsuspecting public as Senior Director of the Company; at his tier, he operated alongside Riaz Khattak and Iftikhar Khattak, absconders till date, through an office set up at Peshawar. As the investigation progressed, the affectees, still pouring in to join the process, recorded their statements wherein they unambiguously blamed the petitioner for having received the sums through the trap. Colossal amounts were siphoned off beyond investigative reach through conversion into crypto currency/bit coins.
2. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that petitioner is himself victim of the scam as he initially made a deposit in the hope to earn profits and, thus, joined the company without any mens rea to defraud the public at large and as such is not beneficiary of the fraud; it is next argued that despite lapse of considerable time, the NAB has not yet filed the reference and, thus, his continuous detention is serving no useful purpose.
3. Heard. Record perused.
4. With the assistance of learned Law Officer, we have gone through the record to find a long list of victims deprived of huge amounts, each blaming the petitioner for soliciting deposit in lieu of regular lucrative profit, a promise that soon turned out as farce; the affectees are from different regions and backgrounds and, thus, cannot be possibly stage-managed to cook up a false case that too without any earthly reason. Investigative details confirm establishment of an office at Peshawar as is unanimously pointed out by the witnesses in their statements before the Investigating Officer. A small amount statedly deposited by the petitioner to project himself as an innocent victim of the scam without any tangible proof, in the face of formidable evidence, does not provide any space to hypothesize his claim of innocence. In this backdrop, refusal by the High Court to release the petitioner on bail in exercise of its equitable Constitutional jurisdiction is not open to any legitimate exception. Petition fails. Leave declined. We are dismayed by Investigating Officer's failure to recover the pilferage and locate assets accumulated through the scam; his failure to arrest the co-accused and file reference in time are no less disquieting either.