Sessions court indicted the chief executive officer of a software company and 13 others in the fake degrees case

A sessions court on Saturday indicted the chief executive officer of a software company and 13 others in the fake degrees case.

Axact Chief Executive Officer Shoaib Shaikh, his wife Ayesha Shoaib, management team members Viqas Atique, Zeeshan Anwar, Mohammad Sabir and Zeeshan Ahmed, and eight other employees of the company have been charged with preparing and selling fake degrees, diplomas and accreditation certificates of fictitious schools and universities through a fraudulent online system and thereby illegally minting millions of dollars.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (South) Sohail Ahmed Leghari read out the charges, but the accused pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case.

The court then asked the prosecution to produce its witnesses on Oct 21.

The Sindh High Court had granted bail to the accused in the same case a couple of months ago.

The scandal surfaced in May last year when The New York Times published a report which claimed that Axact sold fake diplomas and degrees online thro­ugh hundreds of fictitious schools, making “tens of millions of dollars annually”.

Subsequently, the offices of Axact were sealed, its CEO and key officials were arrested and a probe was launched on the basis of the allegations levelled in the NYT report.

After an inquiry, a case was registered against M/s Axact FZ LLC, UAE, and others under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 472 (making counterfeit seal, etc., with intent to commit forgery punishable under Section 467), 473 (making counterfeit seal, etc., with intent to commit forgery punishable otherwise), 474 (having possession of document described in Sections 466 or 467 knowing it to be forged and intending to use it as genuine), 477-A (falsification of accounts), 109 (abetment) and 34 (common intention) of Pakistan Penal Code and Sections 36 and 37 of Electronic Transaction Ordinance, 2002, at the FIA, Corporate Crime Circle, Karachi.

An identical case against the accused is also pending before a sessions court in Islamabad. In August, a sessions court in Karachi acquitted Shoaib Shaikh in another case pertaining to money laundering.