PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday disposed of a writ petition filed by former MNA retired captain Mohammad Safdar with the direction to National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, not to arrest him without issuance of an arrest warrants in any inquiry against him.

The bench comprising Justice Roohul Amin Khan Chamkani and Justice Mohammad Ayub also directed the petitioner, Mr Safdar, who is son-in-law of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, to appear before NAB, if required, in any of the inquiries against him.

Mr Safdar had moved the court apprehending his arrest by the NAB with the request to issue directives to the bureau not to arrest him without legal proceedings.

Barrister Mudassir Amir appeared for the petitioner and contended that his client had frequently been issued call-up notices by the bureau.

He pointed out that the petitioner had appeared in October last year before a team of NAB in an inquiry pertaining to alleged misuse of authority when he was MNA from NA-2, Manshera.

He stated that the NAB had normally now been arresting suspects after asking them to appear in connection with any inquiry through a call-up notice without issuance of arrest warrants.

He contended that the Supreme Court in one of the judgments had pronounced that the arrest warrants should be issued by the NAB at least 10 days before arresting a suspect.

Deputy prosecutor general of NAB, Mohammad Jamil, stated that despite issuance of call-up notices Mr Safdar had not been appearing before the NAB’s team in an inquiry pertaining to his assets, which were apparently disproportionate to his known sources of income.

He contended that the petitioner would never be arrested in illegal manner.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2019