The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission (KPEC), an important institution set up last year by the provincial government in accordance with the manifesto of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf to check corruption by public office-holders, made several high profile arrests during last three months. However, the recent release of some of the key suspects on bail by the Peshawar High Court has turned into a source of embarrassment for the commission.

While the PHC rarely allows bail to suspects arrested on graft charges by the National Accountability Bureau, which is a federal institution, the grant of bail to suspects arrested by the KPEC in important cases is mostly because of certain apparent lacunas in the KPEC Act, 2014, under which the commission was established.

The commission started functioning a few months ago and made first arrests on April 17 when it apprehended five persons, including chief coordinating officer of Kohat district council Noor Daraz Khattak, who is father of PTI MPA Gul Sahab Khattak, on the charges of grabbing government land worth Rs250 million. The other four suspects were: tehsildar Mohammad Ghulam, patwari Kamran, girdawar Daud Khan and a beneficiary of the scam Taj Mohammad.

The commission claimed that during initial inquiry it surfaced that Noor Daraz, who was tehsil municipal officer in Kohat at the time of occurrence, in connivance with the other suspects had fraudulently transferred government land to different persons in Jarma area.

Subsequently, arrests were made in some other cases too. Pakistan Peoples Party’s former provincial minister Liaquat Shabab was arrested on May 28 on the charges of possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. Similarly, an additional secretary of finance department, Imtiaz Ayub, was arrested on May 27 on the charges of carrying out illegal appointments in social welfare directorate when he was its director a few years ago.

In another case, the owner of Iqra National University, Obaidur Rehman, was arrested on May 29 on charges of purchasing government land measuring 20 kanals in Phase-2 of Hayatabad Township at much cheaper rate compared to market price in 2009. It is alleged that he had been given the land at Rs700,000 per kanal whereas at that time the market value was around Rs 8 million per kanal in the same sector, thus causing a loss of around Rs150 million to the exchequer. Last month, the commission apprehended the director general of mines and mineral development department, Dr Liaquat Ali, who is suspected of misappropriating around Rs60 million on account of leasing out mines for exploration at Nizampur areas. Also, a deputy director of EPI, Dr Janbaz Afridi, was arrested on the charges of misappropriation of funds allocated for the immunization programme.

The high court recently granted bail to Liaqat Shabab, Obaidur Rehman, Imtiaz Ayub, Noor Daraz and some others on different grounds. One major flaw in the KPEC Act 2014 is the lack of any provision for remanding a suspect to judicial custody. While the framers of this law have included Section 38 in the Act which provides mechanism for remanding a suspect into the custody of the commission no provision was included for sending a suspect to judicial lock-up/prison after completion of his physical remand. Prima facie keeping a suspect in prison by the ehtesab court is an illegal practice and the same goes in support of an arrested suspect.

Normally, in other laws the framers use to mention that the Code of Criminal Procure should also apply to proceedings under that particular law. In the National Accountability Ordinance 1999, introduced during military government of Pervez Musharraf, Section 17 was included which states that provision of CrPC would be applied to the proceedings under that ordinance.

Another major problem faced by the ehtesab commission is the overlapping jurisdiction of other institutions in dealing with cases of corruption, especially the NAB. Under Section 35 (3) of KPEC Act 2014, if a federal agency had assumed jurisdiction in a case then the ehtesab commission could not take its cognizance unless a decision is made by head of the said federal agency on the recommendation of the commission’s director general.

Experts dealing with such cases believe that the provincial government should review the KPEC Act 2014 and remove the flaws supportive of the suspects. They said that there should be clarity about the respective jurisdiction of the federal and provincial agencies dealing with corruption cases.

Presently, another body, the anti-corruption establishment (ACE), with almost same functions has also been functioning in the province. Initially, when the KPEC Act was passed Section 57 was included in it which provided that the West Pakistan Anti-Corruption Establishment Ordinance, 1961, under which the ACE was set up, is hereby repealed. But in a few months the provincial government amended the KPEC Act by passing an amendment on June 24, 2014 through which Section 57 of the Act was deleted, thus, allowing the ACE to continue functioning in the presence of KPEC.

The provincial government so far could not give any convincing reason why KPEC was set up in case it did not intend to wind up the ACE. Experts are of the opinion that coordination should be improved between the federal and provincial agencies so as to avoid duplication in dealing with different cases, which goes in favour of the suspect.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play