QAZI MUHAMMAD AMIN AHMED, J. Declined both by the learned Special Judge Central-I Karachi as well as a learned judge-in-Chamber of the High Court of Sindh, petitioners, Deputy and Assistant Directors in the Federal Investigation Agency , respectively . seek leave of the Court for bail in anticipation to their arrest in a case registered with F.I.A./ACC Karachi; they are accused to have received gratification to the tune of rupees 24 millions from one Sheikh Muhammad Munawar arrayed as accused in a financial scam to subtly defraud Utility Stores Corporation to effect a massive sale transaction through a fake certification. During the inquiry , incriminatory statements of various witnesses were forensically confirmed from the computer CDR, and ledgers secured from the custody of co- accused Abdul Qadir Motion a front man in the transaction; it was on the basis of this comprehensive probe that the petitioners braced the impending prosecution.
2. Heard. Record perused.
3. A detailed parallel story related by the petitioners notwithstanding, nonetheless, they were admittedly at the helm of affairs to call the shot and thus in a position to rescue the complainant from the troubled situation he was trapped; various pieces of evidence including forensic data, beyond susceptibility of human interference, unmistakably suggest a conduct perfidious to the call of their duty hence, prima facie, cognizable. It is by now well settled that the accused in a criminal case cannot be granted anticipatory bail to subvert or undermine investigative procedure/process that essentially include arrest in order to bring the statutory exercise to its logical end for effective and meaningful prosecution of the offence through collection of informa tion/evidence consequent upon arrest. Mala fide, manifestly intriguing upon the intended arrest, is the only justification to suspend or divert the usual course of law , a step most extraordinary by all means; it is not a case in hand. Petition fails. Leave declined.