Pre-arrest bail plea of CM’s adviser dismissed

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday dismissed a bail petition filed by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani, who is currently serving as the adviser to the Sindh chief minister on prisons and inter-provincial coordination, in the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) investigation against officials of the Jacobabad education department.

The PPP leader, who is also a former MNA from Jacobabad, submitted that he had been granted interim pre-arrest in NAB inquiries by the court however he was being constantly victimised and harassed by the anti-graft watchdog as it was determined to arrest him in one case or another.

His counsel submitted that NAB intended to arrest the petitioner in respect of an investigation being conducted against officials of the education department in Jacobabad, contractors and others without serving him a call-up notice.

He said NAB officials were conducting raids at his house and searching for him, and sought protection against his possible arrest. The SHC had on February 9 raised a question with regard to the maintainability of the petition as it was pointed out by a NAB special prosecutor that a similar petition filed earlier by the petitioner had been dismissed by the court.

The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the instant petition was against a different component of that investigation and maintainable. The high court observed that apparently the ongoing investigation against the petitioner was in furtherance of a directive by the Supreme Court to NAB in a human rights case to probe the misappropriation of funds allocated for Jacobabad district.

After perusal of the text of instant and previous petitions with regard to relief, the high court observed that the submission of the counsel for the petitioner that the instant petition was against a different investigation was incorrect as the instant petition was filed on December 22, four days after the dismissal of the previous petition. The SHC observed that the memo of the instant petition did not disclose any fresh grounds for a new petition, and dismissed the PPP leader’s plea.