completion of his physical remand.
The lawyer pointed out that if there was no legal cover for judicial remand in the Act, then keeping a suspect in prison by the Ehtesab Court is an illegal practice and the same goes in support of an arrested suspect.
In the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999, he said, legal cover was given to judicial remand of the accused by including section 17 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), but the framers of the Ehtesab Act did not include Section 17 of CrPC and it goes in support of the suspects.
Another senior lawyer, Aminur Rehman Yousafzai, said that another major problem faced by the Ehtesab Commission was the overlapping jurisdiction of other institutions in dealing with cases of corruption, particularly the NAB.
He pointed out that under Section 35 (3) of Ehtesab Commission Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Act 2014, if a federal agency had assumed jurisdiction in a case, then the Ehtesab Commission could not take its cognizance unless a decision was made by head of the NAB, a federal agency, on the recommendation of the Ehtesab Commission’s director general.
He said some accused were released on bail by the high court in the cases in which the NAB had already started inquiry.
The PHC also stopped the Ehtesab Commission from arresting and questioning Prof Dr Ihsan Ali, vice-chancellor, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, in appointments and funds use case, and Syed Masoom Shah, personal assistant to former chief minister Ameer Haider Hoti, in his assets’ case as the NAB had already started inquiries against them.
Presently, PTI’s former provincial minister for mines and minerals Ziaullah Afridi is in physical custody of Ehtesab Commission on charges of misuse of authority. The lawyers said that he would also get his interim bail if the flaws were not removed.
Legal experts say the Ehtesab Commission would become more effective if the provincial government reviewed the relevant law and removed the flaws.They say there should be clarity about the respective jurisdictions of the NAB, Ehtesab Commission and Anti-Corruption Establishment dealing with corruption cases.