ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court rejected on Tuesday a bail petition of Ziaullah Afridi, former minister for mines and mineral development of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with a directive to the provincial accountability commission to proceed against the accused.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam heard the plea filed by Advocate Akram Sheikh on behalf of Mr Afridi against a Sept 22 Peshawar High Court verdict dismissing his bail petition.

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Mr Afridi, who was an active member of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and member of the KP assembly from Peshawar, was appointed the provincial cabinet’s member on April 1 last year. He was arrested in July by the provincial anti-corruption authorities for granting mining licences to excavate minerals, including chromite and phosphate, from sites in Nowshera, Charsadda and Abbottabad.

The PHC had accepted his bail plea on Aug 24 but he had been arrested in two more corruption cases on Aug 5 and 12.

Advocate Sheikh argued that the provincial Ehtesab Commission did not have concrete evidence against to implicate his client in the corruption references, therefore, the court should asked it to close its investigation against Mr Afridi.

The petition pleaded that the arrest and detention had been influenced by ulterior motives and refusal of bail by the high court was contrary to the settled principles of law governing dispensation of justice in criminal cases as laid down by the Supreme Court.

It had named as respondents the director general of the KP Ehtesab Commission, its prosecutor general, investigation director, investigating officer, the station house officer of the Ehtesab Commission police station in Hayatabad and a judge of the Ehtesab Court in Peshawar.

It pleaded that by fabricating fresh “grounds of arrest,” the respondents were using them to keep Mr Afridi behind bars in violation of Article 13 of the Constitution.

The petitioner contended that the maximum statutory period for keeping an accused in custody was 45 days which had elapsed on Sept 29. At the time of filing the petition, Mr Afridi had remained in custody for over 100 days since July 9.

He alleged that the respondents had managed to circumvent the safeguard of 45 days by playing fraud on the statute and mala fide actions had violated the right of the petitioner to be dealt with in accordance with the law.

The petitioner contended that the matters relating to renewal and assignment of mining leases were the prerogative of the provincial director general of mines and minerals.

Since Mr Afridi did not enjoy the authority in law to renew, assign or auction mining leases, he could not be held responsible for wrongful exercise of authority, the petition contended, adding that the minister had no jurisdiction to determine the legality of a lease.

Thus the petitioner had no authority to assign, renew or auction the Tangi chromite mines or to examine the legality of such actions, it said.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2015