PESHAWAR, April 29: The Peshawar High Court on Monday ruled that the accountability courts had the powers under section 265-K of the Criminal Procedure Code to decide applications, dealing with the acquittal of an accused before the conclusion of the trial.

A PHC division bench, comprising Justice Tariq Pervaiz and Justice Qaim Jan Khan, remanded back five applications to the accountability courts for rehearing and deciding the applications on merit.

The applications were filed by a former land acquisition collector in the Ghazi Barotha project, Muhammad Ali Shah, and others. They had earlier filed applications before the accountability courts, praying to the courts that as no evidence was available against them, they should be acquitted before the conclusion of the trials.

The courts rejected those applications on the ground that under the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance 1999, they had no powers to deal with the applications under section 265-K of the CrPC. The courts observed that their role was of a referee to decide a reference and could not release an accused before the completion of a trial.

Advocate Qazi Muhammad Anwer appeared for the applicants before the high court’s bench and argued that under the NAB ordinance, the presiding officers of the accountability courts had the powers to decide those applications.

He referred to section 17 of the ordinance, arguing that unless there was anything inconsistent with the provisions of the ordinance, the provisions of the CrPC should apply to trials under the ordinance.

Mr Anwer maintained that the law was very much clear on the subject, but despite that the accountability court had declined to assume jurisdiction in the applications. He added that under the ordinance, even if the accountability court dispensed with the provisions of the code and followed such procedure as it might deem fit but, in that case, the court had to record reasons for that.