ISLAMABAD: The judge who found PTI founder Imran Khan guilty last year, Judge Humayun Dilawar, had arrest warrants issued for him by a judicial magistrate in Bannu.
Tuesday saw the issuance of the warrants in response to an appeal submitted by the PTI-held Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
According to retired Brig Muhammad Musaddiq Abbasi, an advisor to the KP chief minister, the anti-graft committee is looking into the judge’s family for possible land grabbing.
In a case filed against them on Monday under sections 409, 419, 420, 468, and 471 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA), the ACE requested arrest warrants for the judge, his father, uncle, and brother.
Aides to KPCM claim that the judge’s family is under investigation for “forging land documents.”
Forgery is punishable by up to seven years in jail and a fine under Section 468. Sections 409, 419, and 420 address minor offenses committed by public employees, personation, and cheating and dishonesty, respectively.
Judicial Magistrate Bannu Mehbooul Hassan accepted ACE’s plea and stated that while the remaining allegations are cognisable, the prosecution requested warrants under Section 468 of the PPC, which is not.
For crimes classified as cognizable, police can make an arrest without a warrant; for crimes classified as non-cognizable, a magistrate’s warrant is required before police can take the accused into custody.
The judge and his family members were ordered to be arrested by the magistrate and the ACE. The order said that “warrants shall be deemed effective until the accused is arrested and produced before the court.”
On August 5 of last year, Judge Dilawar sentenced the former prime minister to three years in prison in response to the Election Commission of Pakistan’s accusation that he had not misrepresented his holdings.
A court order to “illegally occupy” land is allegedly being tempered by the judge and his family, according to Mr. Abbasi, KP CM’s special assistant on anti-corruption.
He said in a video clip that the judge’s brother, Sadiq Dilawar, and father, Dilawar Khan, had faked the paperwork to transfer land valued at Rs. 1.5 billion into their names and build a housing community there.
