ISLAMABAD: A Control of Narcotics Substance (CNS) court on Wednesday adjourned the hearing of the multi-billion ephedrine quota scam case.
In its previous hearing, the court had ordered the prosecution to produce all the accused and witnesses.
During the hearing, all the accused including former federal minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin, Ali Musa Gilani and others were present except Iftikhar Babar who had filed for a one-day exemption which the court accepted.
The case involves illegal allocation of ephedrine quotas worth Rs7 billion to two pharmaceutical companies – Berlex Lab International and Danas Pharmaceutical.
It is worth mentioning that Ali Musa Gillani son of former prime minister Yusaf Raza Gillani in 2010 allegedly influenced the health ministry officials to allocate a quota of controlled chemical ephedrine, reportedly worth Rs70 billion, to two different Multan-based pharmaceutical companies. Such companies were allocated huge quantities of ephedrine in excess of their quotas whereas both the firms did not maintain records of consumption of the controlled chemical.
The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) had registered a case against all accused in June 2012 under various sections of the Control of Narcotics Substances (CNS) Act according to which a company cannot be allocated more than 500kg of the drug, a limit fixed by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).
ANF officials claimed the substance was sold to narcotics smugglers who used it to make ‘party drugs’.
The court was adjourned and next date of hearing was fixed for December 20.
