By Adnan Rafique
ISLAMABAD: A judicial magistrate court on Friday granted a three-day physical remand of accused Shoaib Sheikh to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for alleged bribing to a judge in the Axact degree case.
The FIA produced the accused before Judicial Magistrate Umar Shabbir and requested for his 10-day physical remand to carry out an investigation into the matter.
The FIA’s investigation officer informed the court that the high court had ordered an inquiry against the accused, and during the investigation transaction of some amount in the account of the former judge was found. However, the judge did not confess to taking any bribe, he added.
The accused said he had no connection with the transaction and he should have been given some time to join the investigation.
Whether the accused, who had transferred the said amount into the judge’s account, had been arrested, he asked.
Prosecutor Ishfaq Naqvi said a total of 26 accused were named in the case. The statement of the said former additional session judge was part of an appeal pending with the high court, he added.
Shoaib Sheikh had filed the appeal without going to jail, the prosecutor said.
He stated that the former judge had confessed before the two high court judges to receiving the bribe, and opposed the request of the defence seeking to discharge the accused from the case.
The counsel for accused, Latif Khosa Advocate said the inquiry was conducted in 2018 and the FIA was now thinking to file the case. A verbal statement could not be considered a confession, he said and prayed to the court to discharge his client from the case.
The court, however, granted three-day remand of the accused to the FIA.
