PESHAWAR, Sept 16: Former police inspector Mehmood Hussain, serving a sentence in a corruption case, has filed an application in the Peshawar High Court, seeking release on the “completion” of his jail term.

He complained to the court that he had completed his jail term, but the authorities had been refusing to release him.

Hussain said his prison term had completed on Sept 9, but due to what he called “wrong interpretation” of the law by the registrar of an accountability court, the prison authorities were reluctant to release him.

A two-member bench of the high court reserved its judgment three months back on the appeal of the former police official, challenging his conviction by the accountability court.

The instant application, filed by advocate Qazi Muhammad Anwer on his behalf, stated that he had been first convicted by the accountability court on Nov 6, 2000, on charges of possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. He was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment and awarded a fine.

Hussain filed an appeal in the PHC, which set aside that the accountability court’s verdict on June 28, 2001, and remanded the case back to the trial court.

The accountability court again convicted him on March 20, 2002, and sentenced him to five years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs13.6 million. He again challenged the verdict in the high court through an Ehtesab appeal.

The appeal was heard continuously from June 11 to June 14, but despite the passage of three months, the judgment has not been delivered. When his appeal was heard after his earlier conviction, even at that time the judgment was reserved on Jan 17, 2001, and pronounced quite late on June 28, 2001.

At the time of his conviction, the trial court had extended him the benefit of section 382-B of the criminal procedure code under which the period of detention has to be considered in the prison term.

According to the appellant, he completed his sentence early this month and submitted an application to the Haripur prison superintendent, who referred the matter to the accountability court.

He said the registrar of the accountability courts had advised the prison authorities that as his earlier conviction had been set aside, his sentence should be counted from March 20, 2002, when he had been convicted for the second time by the court.