Liaqat Shabab, others granted interim bail

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday issued release order of former provincial minister Liaqat Shabab, additional secretary finance Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Imtiaz Ayub and Noor Daraz who was working as chief coordination officer in the District Council Kohat on interim bail.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission had arrested the two government employees and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Liaqat Shabab on charges of making illegal assets, indulging in corruption and misusing power.
A division bench comprising of Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Mrs Justice Irshad Qaisar issued the release order of the four persons when the prosecutors of the Ehtesab Commission failed to explain the legal cover to the judicial remand of the accused persons under the KP Ehtesab Commission Act.
The court also issued release orders of Muhammad Daud, a patwari working in the provincial revenue department on interim bail. He had been arrested along with Noor Daraz and three others in the land scam case concerning the allotment of 150 kanal of government land worth Rs250 million in Jarma village in Kohat. Noor Daraz is the father of Gul Sahib Khan, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf MPA from Karak.
The petitioners’ lawyers appeared for the accused and raised a legal point by arguing that the judicial custody of the accused through the Ehtesab Act by the Ehtesab Court was illegal as no legal cover had been given to the act for obtaining judicial custody of the accused.
They pointed out that through the CrPC or the Criminal Procedure Code a legal cover had been given to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAB) for judicial custody of the accused, but no such legal protection was given in the Ehtesab Commission Act.