Justice Naematullah Phalpoto of the Sindh High Court (SHC), on Monday, directed the Investigation Officer (IO) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to present law before the court under which the FIA raided Digitonics Lab’s buildings at Shahrah-e-Faisal Karachi.
The division bench of SHC heard the constitution petition filed by the owners and employees of Digitonics Lab. The petitioner claimed that the FIA’s raid at the software house was illegal and without any lawful act.
The FIA submitted its comments before the SHC bench headed by Justice Naematullah Phalpoto today in which the investigating agency denied all the allegations filed in the constitution petition.
Justice Phalpoto has deferred the hearing of the petition till February 12, directing the FIA to submit the law under which they raided the offices of the software house in Karachi. In addition, the FIA was also asked to provide the evidence they recovered.
Digitonics Lab, a software developing company was working in Karachi, Dubai, and the United Kingdom (UK), and was an exporting software company.
According to the petitioner’s lawyer, the FIA officials sealed the building of the software house after raiding its offices located at Shahrah-e-Faisal Karachi, in which more than 2,500 to 3,000 employees were working. Now the employees of the software house are unemployed.
The petitioner’s counsel stated that the FIA conducted an illegal raid at the company’s office on the basis of ‘false and fabricated’ complaints without any lawful warrants.
The SHC was told that the FIA later registered a case against the company on the basis of forgery, money laundering, and other charges under the Prevention of the Electronic Crimes Act. The counsel submitted that under the guise of investigation, the FIA had subjected the company employees to harassment and their equipment had been unlawfully taken without the due legal process, making it impossible for the petitioner to carry out its lawful business.
The SHC was requested to register the FIA inquiry on the basis of false complaints and in violation of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act. The petitioner also sought a court direction to restrain the FIA from harassing its employees and staff.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raided the offices of Digitonics Lab—a software house located in two separate buildings at Shahrah-e-Faisal, Karachi—and seized relevant records of the company earlier this week. On January 14, the Cybercrime Wing (CCW) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) registered a First Information Report (FIR) against eight people, including Digitonics Lab owner Mohammad Burhan Mirza, for committing fraud.
