PHC restrains NAB from arresting serving, retired police officers

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday restrained the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from arresting five serving and one retired police officers in a high-profile case of embezzlement of funds in weapons procurement for the Police Department.
A single bench of Justice Roohul Amin Khan stopped the arrest of the six police officers till August 24, the next date for hearing of the case.
The court also issued directives to the NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to submit written comments in the court before the next hearing about the arrest of the petitioners.
The six police officers including former Frontier Constabulary commandant Abdul Majeed Marwat, former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa additional IGP (operations) Abdul Latif Gandapur, DIG at Central Police Office Sajid Ali Khan, former DIG Headquarters Peshawar Mohammad Suleman, former AIG (Establishment) at Central Police Office Kashif Alam and former DIG (Telecommunications) Sadiq Kamal Orakzai had filed the petition.
The petitioners were seeking restraining order from the court about their arrest by the NAB in the multi-billion weapons purchase scam in the Police Department.
A team of lawyers, including Abdus Samad Khan, Aamir Javed, Mudassir Ameer and Anwarul Haq appeared for the petitioners and submitted that despite the accountability court and superior courts decisions rejecting the NAB plea for summoning the petitioners in the weapons scam, the NAB issued notice to them to appear before the office.
They informed the bench that the PHC had in June this year dismissed the review petition of the NAB and upheld its earlier order about the non-summoning of one retired and five serving police officers by an accountability court for indictment in a high-profile case of embezzlement of funds in weapons procurement for their department.
It was also pointed out that the some days ago the Supreme Court had also dismissed the NAB appeal filed against the PHC decision.
In March 2014, an accountability court had declined to summon the six police officers citing the NAB failure to explain their offence as a major reason.
The court had observed that the position of the suspects had yet to be spelled out and construed by the NAB under the law and in line with the relevant provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Subsequently, the accountability court dismissed on November 24, 2014 an application of the NAB and retain own earlier decision of not summoning the six officials.
The court had observed that so far the NAB hadn’t produced convincing reasons for the non-arrest of the said six suspects and that whenever any convincing reason was given, the court would summon them accordingly to face the charge at any stage.
Upset by those orders of the accountability court the NAB filed the earlier writ petition saying the trial court had erred by not summoning the six officers to stand trial as they were members of the purchase committee, which had awarded lucrative contracts to a private contractor Arhsad Majeed who later on turned approver.
The NAB, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had filed a reference of Rs2.03 billion in the weapons purchase scam against former Inspector General of Police Malik Naveed Khan and nine other senior serving and retired police officers in the Accountability Court, Peshawar.
The NAB charged 10 persons, including seven serving and retired cops, and the brother and a close relative of former chief minister Ameer Haider Hoti for receiving kickbacks in the procurement of weapons, equipment and vehicles for the provincial Police Department.
Raza Ali, a close relative of the former chief minister, entered into a plea bargain, due to which brother of the chief minister Ghazan Hoti also acquitted from the charges.