PHC dismisses NAB’s petition

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday dismissed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) petition against an accountability court’s decision of not summoning six serving and former senior police officers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for indictment in the weapons purchase corruption case.A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Abdul Latif Khan dismissed the petition after hearing both the parties.
The accountability court judge Muhammad Ibrahim Khan had twice dismissed the NAB KP appeal for summoning the police officers in the court. These senior cops have been charged along with other accused persons in the multi-billion rupees weapons scam in the KP Police Department.
During hearing of the case, the NAB prosecutors submitted that the six police officers had been charged in the reference along with others in the weapons scam.The six police officers were ex-commandant of Frontier Constabulary (FC) Abdul Majeed Marwat, ex-additional IGP (operation) Abdul Latif Gandapur, DIG at Central Police Office Sajid Ali Khan, ex-DIG (headquarters) of Peshawar Muhammad Salman, the then AIG (establishment) at Central Police Office Kashif Alam and the DIG (telecommunications) at the time Sadiq Kamal Orakzai.
The NAB prosecutors pointed out that the accountability court refused to summon the six police officers against whom the NAB filed application in the court twice for summoning them. They added that the court dismissed the applications.
They submitted that the police officers have been placed in Column-2 of the reference. They argued that under the National Accountability Ordinance, the court issues the arrest warrants of such accused in the reference, but the judge refused to do so.
The NAB, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had filed the reference against 10 people on March 18 charging them with corruption under the NAB Ordinance, 1999.
It alleged that the eight police officials in the reference were in league with each other and had criminally designed and hatched a conspiracy, committed grave illegality and grossly violated the provision of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Procurement of Goods, Works and Services Rules 2003.
The NAB claimed that the police officers extended unwarranted favour to the approver in the case, Arshad Majeed, a private contractor, during the award of contracts for purchase of weapons and equipment amounting to Rs5.7 billion.