PESHAWAR, Oct 10: An accountability court here on Monday acquitted former commandant of Frontier Constabulary Malik Naveed Khan and three others charged with carrying out over 700 illegal appointments in FC. The court presided over by Afsar Shah pronounced a short order observing that the prosecution could not prove its case against the four accused persons -- Malik Naveed, deputy commandant Ghaniur Rehman Wazir, FC district officer Mohammad Shoaib and ATO Hamid Hassan.

A panel of lawyers including Raja Irshad, Wali Khan Afridi and Gohar Rehman Naqshband appeared for the defence and contended that the defendants had not violated any rules. They added that due to precarious law and order situation the defendants had to recruit persons in the FC on emergency basis. The prosecution had produced 20 witnesses in the case.

The NAB(KP) stated in the reference that an advertisement was published in newspapers for the recruitments in FC on May 28, 2006. After the advertisement, the Frontier Constabulary commandant constituted a five-member recruitment committee to conduct test and interview and preparation of merit list with the Swat district officer as its chairman.

The committee, after conducting test and interview, prepared a list of 776 recommended candidates with another 183 placed in the reserve list. NAB alleged that the commandant while issuing the enlistment order appointed 1,246 candidates and among them only 750 were those recommended by the committee while the remaining 496 were recruited illegally.

Later, the Frontier Constabulary commandant allegedly issued another letter on Nov 25, 2006, ordering recruitment of additional 217 candidates without advertising the vacancies and even without conducting the test and interview.