PHC grants bail to ex-minister Ziaullah Afridi

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday granted bail to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s former provincial minister Ziaullah Afridi who was arrested by the Ehtesab Commission on charges of misuse of authority, unlawful appointments and illegal mining.
A two-member bench comprising of Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Muhammad Younas Thaheem issued release order of the Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) from urban Peshawar after hearing arguments of the petitioner’s lawyers and the Ehtesab Commission’s prosecutors.
Ziaullah Afridi’s brother, Hidayatullah Afridi, in his main writ petition had filed an application for the former minister’s release on bail from the custody of the Ehtesab Commission.
A team of lawyers, including Abdul Latif Afridi, Muhammad Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Barrister Mudassir Aamir, represemted Ziaullah Afridi in the case. They submitted that the Ehtesab Commission had arrested him on July 9, 2015 and started victimising him by prolonging his physical custody in the same cases.
They contended that there was provision for 45 days physical custody of an accused and Ziaullah Afridi had already spent that much time in imprisonment.
They explained that the petitioner was arrested in a case of illegal mining at the Mamakhel mine in the Nowshera district and also unlawful appointments.
They pointed out that then his physical remand was obtained in the Tangi illegal mining case.
They submitted that after expiry of remand in the first two cases, the Ehesab Commission got his 13 days physical remand in another case of facilitating illegal mining in Abbottabad.
Ziaullah Afridi’s lawyers argued that no legal cover has yet been given to the Ehtesab Commission for judicial custody of the accused as the amendments made in the Act to achieve this purpose had yet to become part of the law.
The lawyers pointed out that the high court had already granted interim bail to all the suspects on the basis of the same point that legal cover had not been given yet in the Act to seek judicial custody of the accused.
They said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) being the federal agency had already initiated inquiry against the officials of Department of Mines and Mineral Development and arrested several of them, including the former director general Dr Liaqat Ali.
The legal counsels said the file related to illegal mining of Mamakhel mine in Nowshera was with the NAB while the phosphate mining case was also under its consideration and, therefore, the Ehtesab Commission could not interfere in the matter under Section 35 of the Act. They said the detained former minister had developed differences with high-ups in the government who had threatened him with dire consequences on the issue of mines and minerals in which blue-eyed people from their home districts were involved.
They maintained that the arrest of the detainee is the result of his opposition to the wrong policies and acts of the provincial government.
On the other hand, Deputy Prosecutor General, Ehtesab Commission, Zahid Aman, opposed Ziaullah Afridi’s release on bail. He pointed out that the former minister was still in judicial custody of the Ehtesab Commission as he was found involved in the embezzlement and illegal mining that had taken place in the Mines and Minerals Department, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on a massive scale.
He submitted that the exchequer suffered a loss of Rs1.4 billion due to the illegal mining and that investigation in the case was still going on.
Zahid Aman submitted that the accused couldn’t be released on bail until he was in physical custody of the Ehtesab Commission. The bench after hearing arguments from both sides issued release order of Ziaullah Afridi on interim bail. He was directed to furnish two bail bonds worth Rs2 million each for his release.