PESHAWAR, March 14: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday admitted to full hearing the writ petition of a former chief secretary, Khalid Aziz, praying for his release on bail.

A two-member bench issued notice to the National Accoun-tability Bureau to explain its position in the matter.

The petitioner, who was also an official in erstwhile Ehtesab bureau, had been convicted by an accountability court in 2000 on the charge of possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income and awarded four years imprisonment with Rs49 million fine. Later, the PHC had reduced his term to two years.

A reference has been pending against him before an accountability court where the prosecution has claimed that a contract worth Rs15 million was given by the primary education department to a firm owned by the petitioner, M/s Hayat and Brothers, when he was the additional chief secretary.

The same amount was mentioned by the prosecution in the previous reference and the petitioner had adopted the plea that the present reference was a case of “double jeopardy”.