LAHORE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti on Monday allowed the transfer of appeal of PML-N leader Raja Hanif Abbasi from Rawalpindi to principal seat against his sentence in ephedrine quota case. The CJ directed the registrar office to fix the hearing of the appeal at the principal seat before an appropriate bench.

Earlier, a provincial law officer opposed the transfer application and said there was no need to transfer the proceedings to Lahore seat as appeals in narcotics cases were being heard at the Rawalpindi bench.

The petitioner’s counsel, however, contended that judges sitting at Rawalpindi bench rescued themselves from the appeal on personal reasons. He asked the court to transfer the appeal from Rawalpindi to the principal seat at Lahore.

A special court for control of narcotics substance (CNS) had awarded life imprisonment along with a fine of rupees one million to Abbasi in the ephedrine quota case.

The ANF had registered the case against Abbasi and others in 2012 under sections 9-C, 14 and 15 of the CNS Act for misuse of 500kg of ephedrine. The appeal filed by Abbasi said the conviction was politically motivated as only one out of eight suspects of the case was convicted.

It said the appellant never misused the ephedrine quota but the trial court ignored basic legal questions before handing down the impunged sentence. It argued that the ephedrine did not fall within the definition of scheduled drug or controlled narcotics.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022