Practice Area

Criminal Trials & Appeals

We defend accused persons at trial in Pakistan's accountability, special, and sessions courts, and we argue their appeals in the High Courts and the Supreme Court. The counsel who builds the trial record carries it up, because an appeal is only as good as the record made below.

A white-collar trial in Pakistan is a documents case wearing the procedure of an ordinary criminal trial. The prosecution's exhibits — bank statements, board minutes, sanction memos, forensic reports — come in under the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order 1984 and the Bankers' Books Evidence Act 1891, and most trials are decided by which side has mastered the paper. We read the entire investigation file before the first witness is called, and we cross-examine to put on record the documents the prosecution left out.

Every objection is made with the appeal in mind. An appellate court sees only the record, so the record must contain the objection, the ground, and the ruling — a point argued brilliantly but never recorded does not exist. We maintain our own running record of the trial against the court's, and we treat each order sheet as a page of the eventual paper book.

We are candid with clients about time. Trials in the accountability and special courts run for years, and the honest strategy is set at the start: contest everything, or narrow the case to the counts that matter, or position for the earliest decisive application. The statutory landscape — including the accountability law as amended in 2022 and the state of the litigation over those amendments — is described here as of mid-2026 and is confirmed at the outset of every brief.

How We Serve

We defend references under the National Accountability Ordinance 1999, as amended in 2022 and as those amendments stand after the Supreme Court litigation that followed. The amendments narrowed NAB's jurisdiction — including the monetary threshold for cases NAB may pursue — and moved bail within the accountability courts' own power, and each of those changes is a defense tool. The trial itself turns on documents, and we cross-examine the investigating officer on the file he built.

FIA challans are tried before the Special Judges (Central), electronic-crime cases before the courts designated under section 44 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016, banking offences before the Banking Courts, and revenue offences before the special judges for customs and taxation. Each forum has its own procedure grafted onto the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898, and we defend in all of them.

We move for pre-arrest bail under section 498 and post-arrest bail under section 497 of the Code, and for interim protective orders where a client must travel to another province to face a case. In accountability matters we apply to the trial court itself, a route the 2022 amendments opened, with the High Court under Article 199 held in reserve. Bail is the first battle and often the decisive one, and we prepare it with trial-level care.

Where the case should never reach evidence, we move to quash under section 561-A of the Code or under Article 199, and we invoke section 265-K, which lets the trial court acquit at any stage where conviction is not in prospect. A charge framed wrongly is challenged when framed. These applications are used selectively — a weak quashment petition educates the prosecution — and we say so when the better course is trial.

We argue appeals against conviction, defend acquittals against state and complainant appeals, and file revisions against interlocutory orders under the Code. Suspension of sentence and bail pending appeal under section 426 is sought at admission. Limitation in this field is unforgiving — appeal windows under the accountability law are measured in days — so the notice of appeal is prepared before the judgment is announced.

We file and defend petitions for leave to appeal under Article 185(3) of the Constitution, appeals as of right where the Constitution provides them, and jail petitions for convicted persons. Leave is won on a clean question of law, so the petition is built around one, stated in a page.

Representative Matters

20—Represented a bank in private criminal complaints arising from a defaulted exposure; proceedings quashed.Banking Offences
20—Acted in extradition proceedings and secured deletion of an Interpol Red Notice.Extradition
20—Appeared for a regulator's licensee in appellate proceedings before the — High Court.Regulatory

All Representative Matters

Illustrative of the practice; matters anonymized consistent with confidentiality obligations.

Who To Call

Photograph forthcoming