PESHAWAR, June 14: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday dismissed an appeal filed by the National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, challenging the acquittal of former Frontier Constabulary (FC) commandant Malik Naveed Khan and three others charged with making over 700 illegal appointments.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth pronounced that the appeal was not maintainable as the mandatory requirement under Section 32 of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, was violated and an irrelevant person had filed the instant appeal without proper sanction from the NAB chairman and prosecutor general.

The bench observed that it was constrained to record a strong note of displeasure against the government functionaries whose duty under the statutory law was to fill up vacancies in no time to put system into correct channel and to make NAB an effective tool to catch thieves.

It said there were un-condonable defaults by the relevant functionaries time and again and therefore, action should be taken against the responsible persons under the Efficiency and Disciplinary Rules for gross misconduct.

On October 10, 2011, an accountability court had acquitted the four accused, Malik Naveed, deputy commandant Ghaniur Rehman Wazir, district officer of FC Mohammad Shoaib and ATO Hamid Hassan.

The NAB, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had charged Malik Naveed, a former inspector general of police (IGP), with carrying out illegal recruitment in the FC in connivance with the other three accused when he was its commandant.

Lawyers Raja Mohammad Bashir, Mohammad Siddique Haider Qureshi and Khalid Abbas appeared for Malik Naveed, while Tariq Afridi and Gohar Zaman represented other accused.

At the outset of the proceedings, Mr Bashir raised preliminary objection that this appeal had been filed by a person, who was not authorised by the law to file it, and therefore, it should be dismissed.

He referred to a Supreme Court judgment delivered last year wherein the court had ruled that an appeal wouldn’t be accepted unless it was field by the prosecutor general on the directives of the NAB chairman.

The bench observed that the instant appeal carried a certificate, which mentioned that the in charge of the prosecution wing had approved on file the filing of this appeal.

A prosecutor of NAB had to face hard time in convincing the court that the appeal was maintainable.

When asked by the court to produce any document, which could prove that the appeal was file on the direction of the chairman and with the approval of the prosecutor general, he said more time should be given to them as the case would be argued by the deputy prosecutor general, who was not available on Thursday.