PESHAWAR, Feb 19: A judge of the Peshawar High Court, Justice Tariq Pervez, on Thursday expressed his inability to hear an accountability appeal of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) challenging the acquittal of federal minister for water and power Aftab Sherpao and four others in the Ring Road land acquisition scam.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Ijaz Afzal, which was hearing the appeal, referred the case to the chief justice for fixing it before any other bench.

Justice Pervez observed that he was part of a bench which had earlier decided a government appeal against fixation of award for the land acquired for the Ring Road. He added that being a part of that bench he did not consider it suitable to hear the present appeal.

The appeal is filed by the National Accountability Bureau, contending that the acquittal of the five accused byan accountability court was unjustified as there wasenough evidence on record against them.

The accountability court presided over by Said Maroof Khan had on June 21 last year acquitted the five accused - Aftab Sherpao, a former senator Gul Sher, a former tehsildar Mosam Khan and two patwaris Dilawar and Nisar - and had observed that the prosecution could not prove its case against the accused.

The five accused tried by the court were charged of inflicting a loss of Rs 310.067 million to the exchequer in connivance with the five absconding accused. The charge sheet against them states that they had fraudulently gotfixed compensation of land acquired for the Ring Road project situated in Mahal Lala Ahmad and village Saloo, Tehsil Peshawar at inflated and exorbitant rates.

The accountability court had also issued perpetual arrest warrants of five of the absconding co-accused and declared them proclaimed offenders. The five absconding accused - former provincialminister Habibullah Kundi, three brothers of Gul Sher, Haji Khatam Gul, Jam Sher and Juma Sher and a former land acquisition collector Syed Ayub Shah - have already been sentenced in absentia to three years rigorous imprisonment under section 31-A of the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance, 1999.

Advocates Zafar Abbas Zaidi and Sattar Khan appeared for Aftab Sherpao and Gul Sher respectively, whereas Riaz Khan represented the NAB. Sattar Khan had already raised a preliminaryobjection regarding maintainability of the NAB's appeal.

He had stated that under the NAB Ordinance 1999 only the prosecutor general was competent to file an appeal. He claimed that an acting prosecutor general had no legal powers to file appeals against acquittal of any person.