KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday sought comments from the Interior Ministry on the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) plea requesting it to place Ali Janhangir Siddiqui’s name, the ambassador designate to the United States (US), in the Exit Control List (ECL).
The corruption watchdog maintained in its plea that Siddiqui was being investigated for the role of his company M/s Azgard Nine Limited (ANL) in the manipulation of shares that caused a loss of billions of rupees’ to the national exchequer.
The NAB prosecutor said that Siddiqui was not cooperating in the investigation. They feared that he may fly out from the country in a bid to avoid the investigation. He requested the court to include Siddiqui’s name in the ECL for this purpose.
On the other hand, the defence counsel denied all charges and termed them a propaganda by his political opponents.
The lawyer argued that such allegations were levelled after Siddiqui’s nomination as the ambassador to the US, terming the NAB’s plea malafide.
Issuing notices to the Ministry of Interior and others, the court sought their comments by May 15.