ISLAMABAD
A civil court of Islamabad has issued arrest warrants for the Bank Manager of Faisal Bank G-6 Islamabad Branch in response to proceedings against a World Bank employee who has managed to successfully evade the courts of the United Kingdom as well as the courts of Pakistan for over a decade, TLTP has learnt.
On December 16, 2024, Civil Judge Hafeez Ahmed issued bailable arrest warrants for the Manager of Faisal Bank G-6 Manager in a case titled Azfar Hasnain and Another versus Namoos Zaheer. A copy of the court-issued Warrants as well as the relevant case file is available with TLTP.
During the year of 2013 Azfar Hasnain and his wife, both of them retirees filed a case against their former tenant Ms Namoos Zaheer in the County Courts of Central London. They claimed that Namoos had failed to pay the rent which was due to them.
In 2014, after a trial which went for two consecutive days, the County Court London ruled partially in favor of the Plaintiffs and partially in favor of the Defendant. In all, Namoos was directed to pay the retirees a title of £28760. She was also directed to pay all the lawyers’ fee and costs incurred by the other side in pursuing the case.
Left with no other options, the plaintiffs sent Namoos a Legal Notice seeking recovery of their money through their lawyer. And when no overture for settlement was made, they filed a Civil Suit for Enforcement of Foreign Judgement under Section 13 of the CPC, a rarely utilized provision for enforcement of decrees by lower courts of foreign countries.
Namoos vehemently contested this suit for 07 years and systematically delayed the case but eventually lost. The Civil Court of Islamabad upheld the British Court’s judgment in 2020. Namoos appealed to the High Court and lost there too .
In a detailed judgment which has been reported as PLD 2023 Islamabad 2020, a divisional bench of the Islamabad High Court presided by Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, the British judgment was upheld.
Besides, her bankers failed to comply with the order of the court. Continuous non compliance of execution court orders was found as Namoos’ banker refused to en-cash the guarantee. So now the civil court has issued warrants for her bank’s manager.
Namoos Zaheer case may also be seen as highlighting the plight of Pakistani plaintiffs who are trying to recover money decreed in their favor by a British Court. And above all it shows the helplessness of the British as well as Pakistani civil justice system in the face of a globe-trotting World Bank employee who keeps shifting jurisdictions whenever the law catches up to her.
TLTP contacted the officials of World Bank Islamabad Pakistan and Namoos Zaheer on 19 December 24 and 23 December 24 respectively but received no response till filing of this report.
