PESHAWAR: A bench of Peshawar High Court on Thursday stopped an accountability court from framing of charges against two senior police officers in a high-profile case of alleged embezzlement in procurement of weapons for the police department.

The bench comprising Justice Roohul Amin Khan Chamkani and Justice Syed Afsar Shah also directed the National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to submit reply in writ petitions filed by the two deputy inspectors general (DIG) of Police, Dr Muhammad Suleman and Kashif Alam, who have challenged a recent order of the accountability court of turning down their respective applications requesting that they should be discharged of the charges against them prior to their indictment.

The bench fixed Oct 27 for next hearing of the writ petitions.

A day earlier another bench of the court had also stayed the indictment of another senior officer, DIG Sadiq Kamal, who has filed almost identical petition as his application was also turned down by the accountability court.

Presently, a former provincial police officer, Malik Naveed Khan, and a budget officer of police department, Jawed Khan, have been facing trial in the case.

An accountability court had indicted them on July 7, 2015, for receiving kickbacks from Arshid Majeed, a private contractor who turned approver in the case, and inflicting a loss of Rs2031.25 million during procurement of weapons and equipment for the police department in 2009-10. They had pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The petitioners’ counsel Aamir Jawed contended that names of six police officers including his clients were mentioned by the NAB in a reference filed before accountability court, but the court had not summoned them for framing of charges observing that their roles had not been spelt out in the reference.

The NAB claimed that the said six officers were members of purchase committee.

He pointed out that the petitioners were considered honest officers in the department and if they were indicted by the court then they might be suspended.

He stated that the trial court (accountability court) had first dismissed an application of the NAB for summoning the said six officers to face trial in Nov 2014 and subsequently on June 18, 2015, the trial court had again turned down the NAB’s plea making the same request.

He added that the high court had also upheld the orders of the accountability court. He added that now the accountability court could not review its own orders.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2016