PESHAWAR: An accountability court here on Wednesday convicted two directors of a forex company in a case of cheating public at large on pretext of investment on high profits and sentenced them to different prison terms with collective fine of Rs189.6 million.

The court presided over by judge Zargesh Sani pronounced that the prosecutionhad provedits case againstShoaibullah Cheema and Zeeshan Ali. The court sentenced Shoaibullah Cheema to seven years rigorous imprisonment with fine of Rs183.74 million whereas Zeeshan was sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment with fine of Rs5.9 million.

The National Accountability Bureau`s prosecutor Riaz Khan stated that the accused persons were directors in a company named Forex Services International situated at Gulberg in Lahore. He added that the said company was having branches in Islamabad, Peshawar, Sargodah, etc.

He said that the accused had lured around 611 persons to invest in the said company on commitment of providing them higher profits. He added that they had received around Rs360 million from people, who had invested their hardearned money in the company.

The prosecutor said that later on they were neither paying profits to the affected persons nor returning back the principal amount. He added that on complaints of hundreds of people the accused were arrested in 2005 and were subsequently released on bail. He said that a third accused in the case, Liaqat Ali Cheema, had been absconding.

INDICTMENT STAYED: A Peshawar High Court bench on Wednesday stopped an Ehtesab court from indictment of a former controller examination of Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Peshawar in a case of excessive printing of textbooks when he was member of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board procurement committee.

The bench comprising Justcie Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan issued notice to KP Ehtesab Commission asking it to explain its position.

The Ehtesab court was scheduled to frame charge against the petitioner, Islam Uddin, today (Thursday).

Advocate Qazi Jawad Ahsanullah Qureshi appeared for the petitioner and contended that the Ehtesab commission had claimed that the petitioner had inflicted a loss of Rs4.6 million on the exchequer by ordering excessive publishing of books.

He argue d that after a recent amendment in the KPE C Act, the commission was only empowered to deal with cases having misappropriation of more than Rs50 million whereas rests of the cases had to be deal by the anti-corruption establishment.

He said that the commission had not made the relevant contractor a party in the case. When the contractor was not a suspect in the case then to whom the petitioner had extended benefit, he questioned.