IHC summons record of trial in fake degree case

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court on Wednesday asked for the record of trial court’s proceedings against the chief executive officer and directors of software company Axact in a fake degree case.

The court sought the record during the hearing of an appeal filed by a deputy director of the Federal Investigation Agency’s Cyber Crime Circle challenging the Oct 31, 2016, acquittal of Axact CEO Shoaib Shaikh and 25 others by Additional District and Sessions Judge Pervaizul Qadir Memon.

The FIA in its appeal maintained that a case had been registered against Axact Islamabad region for preparing and selling degrees of fake online educational institutions with fake accreditation bodies, enticing innocent people through impersonation as student counsellors, within Pakistan and abroad, to pay extra for their fraudulent legalisation/attestation through various governmental institutions and officials.

It said that statements of some of the employees clearly showed that their sale agents were impersonating as highly qualified counsellors of the fraudulent, non-existent, fictitious educational institutes pretending to be in the United States as they used universal access numbers of the US.

According to their statements, they persuaded students to deposit a large amount of money in offshore accounts operated by Axact Islamabad in lieu of online degrees/certificates/diplomas and attestation/legalisation/accreditations from different government bodies, the appeal said.

It claimed that the documentary evidence collected and produced by the investigation agency was sufficient to conclude that the suspects were directly involved in commission of offence, but the trial court committed illegality while acquitting the 26 suspects. The appeal said benefit of doubt was given to the accused on mere assumptions.

The FIA requested the court to declare the acquittal of the Axact directors illegal.

The scandal surfaced in May 2015 when The New York Times published a report claiming that Axact sold fake diplomas and degrees online through hundreds of fictitious schools.

The counsel for the Axact CEO had maintained before the trial court that the FIA could not produce substantial evidence against the suspects.

Source: Dawn