The case surfaced in March 2011 when the then federal minister Makh\u00addo\u00ad\u00adom Shahabuddin said the government would inv\u00adestigate the alleged allocation of 9,000kg of ephedrine to two pharmaceutical companies, Berlex Lab Interna\u00adtional and Danas Pharmaceutical Ltd.<\/p>\n
\nCourt says nothing put on record to prove allegations against PML-N leader<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
According to the rules, a company cannot be allocated more than 500kg of the drug, a limit fixed by the Inter\u00adnational Narcotics Control Board.<\/p>\n
The Anti-Narcotics Force registered a case in June 2012 against nine suspects, including Mr Abbasi.<\/p>\n
The PML-N leader was facing the case when he submitted his nomination papers for a National Asse\u00admbly seat in Rawalpindi for the 2018 elections.<\/p>\n
His candidature was ch\u00ad\u00ada\u00ad\u00ad\u00adllenged in the LHC. While hearing the case in June 2018, former LHC judge Ibadur Rehman Lodhi ordered the CNS court to decide the case against Mr Abbsi by July 21 \u2014 four days before the general elections on July 25.<\/p>\n
\u2018Twisted facts\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\nIn the detailed order, the court noted that the prosecution witnesses \u201ctried to twist\u201d facts to convict the principal accused \u2014 Mr Abbasi.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the testimony of this witness, we can safely conclude that no hard and fast rule can be applied for calculating the percentage of wastage. However, the witness \u2026 during cross-examination, conceded that neither the prosecution has any witness who can claim that the ephedrine was sold or available in raw form in the open market nor the same was recovered from the possession of anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The verdict added the prosecution \u201cmiserably failed\u201d to bring on record any material to prove that the ephedrine quota allotted to Mr Abbasi\u2019s company was \u201cmisused, sold, distributed, delivered, transported, or smuggled in violation of the above rules\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026[T]here is no connecting link that the appellant \u2014 Muhammad Hanif Abbasi, had sold out<\/p>\n
ephedrine to anyone, including smugglers, and no misuse of ephedrine has been brought on the record by the prosecution\u201c.<\/p>\n
While setting aside the conviction, the order stated there was \u201cinherent illegality\u201d in the case and the conviction \u201ccannot be upheld, and findings in this regard are required to be set aside\u201d.<\/p>\n
Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ISLAMABAD: The pro\u00ads\u00ad\u00adecution had \u201ctwisted fa\u00ad\u00adcts\u201d to convict PML-N lea\u00adder Hanif Abbasi in the case related to misuse of contr\u00adolled chemical ephe\u00addrine, stated the Lahore High Court (LHC) while setting aside the conviction. A two-member LHC division comprising Justice Asjad Javaid Ghural and Justice Aalia Neelum had acquitted Mr Abbasi earlier this month after he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/29100509203090c.png?r=100632","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}