The Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday rejected the bail pleas of Ali Musa Gilani, the son of former Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, and Textile Industries Minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin, due to their absence during hearing and issued their arrest orders.
Hearing the ephedrine quota allocation case, LHC’s Rawalpindi bench comprising of Justice Khwaja Imtiaz Ahmed and Justice Ebadur Rehman Lodhi delivered the reserved verdict. The bench inquired from the lawyers of Musa Gilani and Shahabuddin about the absence of their clients. The lawyers informed the bench that their clients were unaware that the court was scheduled to hear their bail pleas. The court expressed dissatisfaction and told the lawyers that it was their duty to inform them and rejected their petitions.
The court directed the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) to arrest both the accused.
Ali Musa and Shahabuddin are accused of pressuring officials of the Health Ministry in 2010 to allocate huge quotas of controlled chemical ephedrine to two different pharmaceutical companies. During the last hearing on August 29, the lawyers of Musa Gilani and Shahbuddin pleaded that ephedrine was not included in the list of narcotics. Accordingly, the ANF could not investigate this case, as there was no evidence with the ANF other than the statements of the two approvers, who gave them under duress. Alleging that the case was politically motivated, the lawyers argued that the ANF was moved to arrest Shahabuddin the day he was to submit nomination papers for the post of prime minister.
LHC orders arrest of Shahab, Musa Gilani in drug quota case
