The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday observed that people had been exploited in the name of Islam for the last 25 years in Pakistan. | Only 25 years? |
The bench said people had been looted in the name of Islamic Investment and Cooperative Society banks and that the SECP had not played its due role in exposing scams at the right time. Dozens of people who had been subjected to IIB scams said they had been deceived in the name of Islam, as the bank had “Islamic” in its name.
The bench expressed its disappointment over the SECP’s role, “which issued licences to ineligible companies that disappeared after looting innocent people.” The bench, however, fixed March 14 for the final hearing, after the victims’ lawyer told the court that hundreds of families were being affected by the SECP’s delaying tactics in the case.
On June 2006, PHC company judge Jehan Zeb Rahim dismissed the SECPÂ’s petition, seeking liquidation of the IIB and asked the federal government to pay Rs 2 billion to about 4,335 depositors who had invested in the bank.
The SECP challenged the company judgeÂ’s decision and filed a writ petition at the PHC Intra court for liquidation of the IIB. The SECP had issued a notification to the IIB, asking the bank to liquidate its business. Defending the liquidation notification in the first petition, the SECP said the IIBÂ’s liquidation notification was suitable and legal. The SECP in its latest report said the IIB was dead and that the entire system of accounts and file management was destroyed and dysfunctional due to huge embezzlement by bank officials.
In the scandal, retired government servants, widows and even vendors lost over Rs 2 billion that they had deposited in the bank to receive the benefits of Islamic banking as propagated time and again, said the victims. About 3,000 depositors, out of 4,335, belonged to the NWFP, and after the PHCÂ’s verdict they began visiting the IIBÂ’s Cantt branch on a daily basis to pressure the staff in to returning their money.
Pari, a female victim from the Qamber area in Swat, told Daily Times that she had sold her house for Rs 300,000 and deposited the money at the IIB to arrange for her daughters’ dowries. “My daughters’ lives will be ruined if we are deprived of the money as none of my daughters’ fiancée are ready to marry them without the dowry,” she added.
