A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Thursday suspended life imprisonment of PML-N's former MNA Hanif Abbasi in ephedrine quota case and released him on bail. A special court for Control of Narcotics Substance (CNS) on July 21, 2018, had awarded the life imprisonment besides fine of Rs 1 one million in the case registered by the Anti Narcotics Force (ANF) in June 2012 under sections 9-C, 14 and 15 of the Control of Narcotics Substances (CNS) Act for misuse of 500 kg ephedrine.
Abbasi was contesting election from Rawalpindi NA-60 against Awami Muslim League's chief Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad but he was disqualified four days before the general election following the court verdict. The trial court had announced the conviction around midnight to meet a deadline set by a single judge of the Lahore High Court's Rawalpindi bench. The LHC in a directive of June 11, 2018, had directed the trial court to announce its verdict by July 21.
Shahid Orakzai had approached the high court for early decision of the ephedrine case who had also challenged the candidature of Abbasi, however, the returning officer and the appellate tribunal had dismissed his objections.
After the conviction, Abbasi was initially kept in Adiala jail Rawalpindi and was shifted to Attock jail after his photograph with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in the room of a jail's official surfaced and later he was shifted to camp jail of Lahore.
A two-judge bench comprising Justice Aalia Neelum and Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar suspended the sentence of Abbasi after hearing arguments his counsel Azam Nazir Tarar at length.
Earlier Azam Nazir Tarar, the counsel of petitioner, contended that the conviction of the appellant was politically motivated as only Abbasi out of eight suspects of the case was convicted. He said the appellant never misused the ephedrine quota but the trial court ignored basic legal questions before handing down the impinged sentence.
He argued that the trial court admitted 75 per cent part of Abbasi's defence statement while rejected the remaining, which was a violation of the settled laws. He further argued that the ephedrine did not fall within the definition of scheduled drug or controlled narcotics. However, the counsel said the trial court relied upon a definition of ephedrine explored on Google. The bench after hearing his arguments at length suspended the sentence of Abbasi and allowed him bail.