LAHORE - A special court for control of narcotics substances on Saturday adjourned the narcotics case against PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah as the police informed the court about its failure to produce him due to law and order situation in the city.
The special court on the police request extended until December 21 the judicial remand of Rana Sana who is also former Punjab law minister and current member of the National Assembly.
In this respect, the police submitted its report in this regard. “Rana Sanaullah was not produced before the court due to law and order situation,” the police report said. The police requested to adjourn the hearing was accepted and the hearing was postponed.
During the last hearing on December 14, Defence lawyer Tahir Khalil Sindhu as a protest against the inappropriate behaviour of police had boycotted the court proceedings. He had said that the security officials resorted to violence against him and other lawyers.
A day earlier, the Lahore High Court (LHC) adjourned until Dec 17 the hearing of a bail petition filed by Rana Sanaullah in the drug case without any proceedings due to lawyers’ strike in the wake of Punjab Institute of Cardiology incident carnage.
Rana Sanaullah took the plea that the record of the Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) had established his innocence and rejected the story of the prosecution narrated in the FIR. He also questioned the delay in registration of the FIR, and submitted that the trial court orders against him set aside and he be released on bail.
In July this year, the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) had submitted charge-sheet against the PML-N leader in the case pertaining to the recovery of heroin from his car at Motorway. The ANF submitted the charge-sheet to the relevant court seized with the hearing of the case. Rana Sanaullah and six other suspects have been named in the 200-page long challan.
On July 1, the ANF arrested him claiming to have recovered 15-kilograms of heroin from his vehicle. The FIR was lodged Under Section 9 (C) of Control of Narcotic Substances Act 1997, which carries death penalty or life imprisonment or a jail-term that may extend to 14 years along with a fine up to Rs1 million.
