PHC extends stay order in Ghulam Ali’s assets case

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday extended the stay order for restraining the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission from arresting former senator and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Ghulam Ali.
A two-member bench comprising of Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Muhammad Younas Thaheem extended the stay order. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission (KPEC) had sought details of assets from Ghulam Ali some two months ago.
The court ordered the KPEC and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to file comments about the petition of Ghulam Ali seeking quashing of the proceedings against him. At the previous hearing, the petitioner’s lawyer Qazi Jawad Ihsanullah said that an official of the KPEC phoned his client on October 12 and asked him to visit his office.
He said when his client went there he was given a document to file details of his assets within four days. The petitioner claimed that no written call-up notice was issued to him.
The lawyer said 14 years ago his client Ghulam Ali was arrested by the NAB on the charge of possessing Rs315 million assets that were disproportionate to his known sources of income, but an accountability court acquitted him on April 8, 2009 and the judgment was later upheld by the high court.
Qazi Jawad Ihsanullah said his client remained a councillor of Peshawar Municipal Corporation on various occasions till 1990.
He said in 2005 his client was elected the district nazim of Peshawar under the new local government system, but resigned from the post to contest the Senate election in 2009.
The lawyer said the NAB had also initiated an inquiry against his client on the allegations of his involvement in sale and purchase of certain properties when he was the district nazim of Peshawar. However, he noted that nothing could be proved against him and the inquiry was closed in 2014.
Qazi Jawad Ihsanullah wondered why the KPEC had reopened inquiry against his client when he was cleared of all charges after 14 years long legal battle.
He said the intent behind the proceedings against his client was malafide on the part of the high-ups of the KPEC.
Separately, the NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa got five days physical remand of a citizen, Akhtar Muhammad, who was accused of receiving bribe from a private contractor on the pretext of quashing an inquiry against him in a high profile arms corruption case.
The NAB on Wednesday arrested the accused and produced him before Accountability Court judge Tariq Yousafzai for obtaining his remand in another case.
The accountability court had already sentenced the accused to 10 years rigorous imprisonment and Rs34.5 million fine after he was found guilty of receiving bribe from a private contractor in the multi-billion rupees weapons scam.
NAB senior investigation officer Inayatullah Khan produced the accused in the court and stated that Akhtar Muhammad had deceived the NAB by hiding a precious house he owned in G-8 locality in Islamabad as he had secretly transferred it in the name of another person named Habib Said.
The prosecutor said that keeping assets hidden from NAB during custody was a crime under Section 23 of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999.
In the previous case against the accused, the judge ruled that the prosecution had proved its case against Akhtar Muhammad, who had received bribe from contractor Arshad Majeed by promising to influence the NAB for quashing inquiry against him in the case.