PESHAWAR: A local accountability court on Tuesday indicted former provincial police officer Malik Naveed Khan and former budget officer of police Javed Khan for receiving kickbacks from a private contractor and inflicting a loss of Rs2031.25 million during the procurement of weapons and equipment for the police department in 2009-10.

The two pleaded not guilty to getting bribe and decided to stand trial.

Judge of the accountability court Mohammad Ibrahim Khan summoned prosecution witnesses in the case on July 9 and adjourned hearing.

Special prosecutor Danyal Asad Chamkani appeared for the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Malik Naveed was arrested on Nov 20, 2013, but his indictment delayed for over a year for different reasons.

During that period, the Peshawar High Court too dismissed his bail plea.

In the case, Ameer Ghazan Khan, brother of former provincial chief minister Ameer Haider Hoti, was also arrested along with his brother-in-law, Raza Ali.

However, he was acquitted by the court few weeks ago after Raza Ali made plea bargain deal with the National Accountability Bureau and agreed to return Rs200 million which he had allegedly received from private contractor Arshad Majeed, a central character of the case, who got most of the lucrative contracts from police.

In the charge framed against the accused persons Malik Naveed is accused of illegally processing and approving award of contracts of SMG (semi-automatic machine gun), heavy weapons, bullet proof jackets and night vision goggles with malafide intentions to accommodate the favourite contractor, Arshad Majeed, who later turned approver.

He is accused of illegally approving the advance payment of Rs189 million despite the fact that the director general of the Project Coordination Unit (PCU) had clearly mentioned the non availability of sufficient funds under the relevant head.

The charge sheet states corruption case that Malik Naveed had obtained kickbacks in cash amounting to Rs360 million from contractor Arshad Majeed besides receiving nine standing split air-conditioners valuing Rs479,000.

Malik Naveed is also accused of ordering the purchase of Chinese motorcycles for police though the inter-departmental purchase committee didn’t approve the deal.

The former PPO is also charged with having complete knowledge of contractor Arshad Majeed being cloth supplier and thus, not qualified for supply of weapons and technical equipment to the department.

As for Javed Khan, the charge sheet states that he had received Rs420 million as kickbacks from Arshad Majeed for extending favours to him in the procurement process.

In addition thereto the approver Arhsad Majeed also allegedly purchased a house for him in Phase 6 Hayatabad Township and also met expenses of Haj performed by Javed and his family.

The NAB alleged that on his pointation Rs4.12 million each and three Glock pistols and other expensive items were recovered from Javed’s residence, which were part of kickbacks received by him.

In the reference the NAB, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had also included names of six other police officers including then commandant of Frontier Constabulary (FC) Abdul Majeed Marwat, ex-additional IGP Operation (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) Abdul Latif Ghandapur, DIG at Central Police Office (CPO) Sajid Ali Khan, then DIG Headquarters Peshawar Mohammad Suleman, then AIG (Establishment) at CPO Kashif Alam and then DIG (telecommunications) Sadiq Kamal Orakzai.

However, the accountability court had not summoned them for the framing of the charge observing their roles were not clearly spelled out in the reference and that they had also not been arrested by the NAB.

The decision of the accountability court was also upheld by the high court and recently, the NAB has challenged that judgment before the Supreme Court.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2015

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