PESHAWAR, April 4: A two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court accepted here on Friday an accountability appeal of a former additional secretary of the housing and physical planning department, Mr Akber Marwat, and acquitted him.

The bench, comprising Justice Nasirul Mulk and Justice Tallat Qayyum Qureshi, set aside the judgment of the accountability court whereby the appellant was sentenced to four years’ rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs3.8365 million.

The appellant had faced trial on charges of possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, which is a crime under Section 9 of the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance, 1999. He was arrested on Sept 8, 2000, and convicted on Jan 24, 2002.

Advocate Abdul Sattar Khan appeared for the appellant and advocate Farooq Adam Khan represented the NAB.

Mr Sattar Khan argued that the entire income of the appellant was on record which was much more than the assets shown by the NAB.

He pointed out that only the income on record of the appellant from his agricultural properties was more than Rs10 million. He added that the appellant was a regular taxpayer and had not concealed any of his income.

During the hearing of appeal, the high court had also summoned some court witnesses who brought on record an income of about Rs1 million more of the appellant from his lands which was not brought on record by the NAB.

The judgment had affected a large number of prisoners.