PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Wednesday stayed the indictment of a senior police officer by an accountability court in the high-profile case of the alleged embezzlement in the procurement of weapons for the police department, and asked the National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to explain stand on it.

Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Qaiser Rasheed issued the stay order after preliminary hearing into a petition filed by deputy inspector general of police Sadiq Kamal Orakzai against the rejection of his request by an accountability court to absolve him of the charges before indictment.

The accountability court had fixed Oct 20 (Thursday) for the framing of charges against him.

The high court bench adjourned the hearing into the petition until Oct 27 asking the accountability court not to frame charges against the petitioner in the meantime.

Directs NAB to explain stand on the matter

Currently, former provincial police officer Malik Naveed Khan and budget officer of the police department Jawed Khan face trial in the case.

An accountability court had indicted them on July 7, 2015, for causing a loss of Rs2.03 billion during procurement of weapons and equipment for the police department in 2009-10 by receiving kickbacks from Arshad Majeed, a private contractor, who later turned approver in the case.

They had pleaded not guilty to corruption.

Aamir Jawed, lawyer for the petitioner, said the names of six police officers, including his client, were mentioned by the NAB in a reference filed before the accountability court, but the court didn’t summon them for the framing of charges observing their roles had not been spelt out in the reference.

The NAB claimed the officers in question were members of the committee tasked with approving the weapon and equipment procurement.

The lawyer said the trial court (accountability court) dismissed a NAB application in Nov 2014 for summoning those six officers to face trial and rejected the NAB’s similar plea later in June 2015.

He added that the high court had also upheld the orders of the accountability court.

The lawyer said the NAB later issued warrants for the arrest of the said officers but they’re challenged in the high court.

He added that the petitioner had withdrawn his petition in the high court after the NAB withdrew his arrest warrants as he promised to appear before the trial court in the case.

The lawyer said the petitioner had moved the trial court seeking orders for freeing him from facing trial due to absence of evidence against him in the case.

He however said contrary to the earlier orders of the accountability court, the present presiding officer rejected that application and decided to frame charge against the petitioner on Oct 20.

The lawyer asked how the trial court could review its earlier order.

He requested the court to restrain the trial court from framing the charge saying once the charge was framed, the petitioner could be suspended from service.

Deputy prosecutor general Jamil Khan insisted the high court couldn’t stop a trial court from framing charge against a criminal suspect.

He said after the framing of the charges, the trial court could decide whether to absolve the petitioner of them or not.

Published in Dawn October 20th, 2016