The banks defrauded allegedly by Khurram Rasool, former advisor to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, tend to mobilize next week the Supreme Court against the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for the spy agency’s alleged inaction against the influential accused, it emerged on Saturday.
According to sources, a couple of national and international banks had approached the FIA in November last year for initiating a probe against Khurram who had obtained loan from a local bank against the properties he had already mortgaged with a foreign bank for a loan he had defaulted on.
The FIA was informed that the ex-advisor to PM had defaulted on a Rs 10 million loan extended to his self-owned concern against mortgage of his two valuable properties in Rawalpindi. After Khurram had defaulted on his loan the bank obtained a decree for recovery of its outstanding amount. During the recovery process it was revealed that the mortgaged properties were already pledged to a foreign bank to obtain a loan facility.
The mortgaged properties include two petrol pumps built on a piece of land measuring 11 kanals in total and situated, respectively, on G.T Road and Iqbal Town of Rawalpindi. The local bank had accessed the FIA last year, on November 21, by filing a complaint against Khurram praying that the accused be taken to task in accordance with law of the land. However, the sources claimed that FIA’s investigators, working on the case, were “hesitant” to take Khurram to the books, thus making the exploited banks having opted to go in litigation against higher ups in the spy agency. “The Investigating Officer has (allegedly) not taken any action against the accused till date despite repeated requests from both the banks and no case had so far been registered against the accused,” said the sources.
They said the banks had prepared a petition through which the apex court would be prayed to direct the Director General FIA to register a case against Khurram for committing fraud with the banks.
The banks would petition that the former advisor to the premier with a “prior design, ulterior motives and criminal intent” had mortgaged the properties with the local bank with an intention of committing fraud. “The fact of the property being mortgaged with the foreign bank was intentionally not disclosed to the local bank and succeeded in obtaining a finance facility,” reads the banks’ petition.
