KARACHI: A banking court has handed down a collective sentence of 17 years in prison to a cashier of a private bank in an over Rs32 million fraud case.

Ghulam Muhammad, along with absconding accused Ali Gul, then banking services manager at the private bank’s branch in Saddar, had been booked on charges of committing breach of trust and embezzling Rs32,978,000 through fake entries showing transfer of physical cash to various branches from May 2023 till August 2023 while no such transfer had taken place.

Judge Javed Ahmed Keerio of the Special Court (Offences in Banks) observed that the prosecution through its 10 witnesses succeeded in establishing that the accused persons “in abetment of each other committed offences of criminal breach of trust, forgery for the purpose of cheating and using the forged documents as genuine and made falsification of bank’s books of accounts.”

He noted that accused Ghulam Muhammad’s role was secondary as he processed certain entries on the instructions of the primary accused Gul, who was the mastermind of the entire scheme. But, he added, such offence could not have been committed if fake entries were not processed by the held accused.

“Looking into his role which is secondary in nature and in absence of allegation as to beneficiary of any amount, he is dealt leniently therefore, lesser punishment is provided,” the judge said, awarding Ghulam Muhammad a total of 17 years in prison. He was also ordered to pay Rs300,000 as a fine or undergo additional imprisonment on default.

The court put the case against Gul on dormant file till his arrest of surrender.

FIA Prosecutor Muhammad Faisal Buriro contended that Gul, in connivance with the cashier, fraudulently generated a cash-in-transit (CIT) entry of Rs14 million on May 8, 2023 for moving cash, which was never requested nor was the cash moved. However, he added the cash was missing from the cash vault of the branch. In a similar manner, cash entries of Rs6.5 million and Rs10 million were made on June 5 and July 21, respectively, and the amount was found missing, he said.

Faisal said that two unauthorised entries from cash vault to counter and counter to vault were also found, where Rs2.478 million were found missing from the cash vault.

He argued that Gul, ex-operation manager, by abusing his official position and in connivance with Ghulam Muhammad, had made through deceitful manners the fake entries of cash in transit/moving of excess cash, which were not approved by the bank’s desk concerned nor was the cash physically moved from the branch.

In his statement, the accused claimed to be innocent and denied all charges levelled against him.

In his written order, the judge further noted: “during the course of statement recorded under Section 342 of CrPC accused Ghulam Muhammad did not deny processing the entries but claimed that such entries were put by him at the instruction of Ali Gul. He also claimed that his limit to process entry was up to Rs50,000 only. Regarding un-settled entries, he narrated that error was in system and his supervisor asked him to put entries.”

“On the basis of my discussion made above while thrashing out the evidence of all Pws [prosecution witnesses] examined by the prosecution so far, I am of the view that both the accused persons being bankers were entrusted with cash of the bank in the capacity of public servants and committed criminal breach of trust,” the judge observed.