PHOTO: National Accountability Bureau
PESHAWAR:
A division bench of the Peshawar High Court restrained the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from collecting 15% operational charges from a suspect in the multibillion rupee scam through which weapons were procured for the K-P police.
The bench also declared a notice issued by NAB to the accused Raza Ali Khan to pay operational charges as null and void. The suspect is the brother-in-law of Ghazan Hoti, the brother of former K-P chief minister Amir Haider Hoti. The two-member bench of Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth was hearing the weapons scandal case on Tuesday.
Plea bargain
Barrister Zahoorul Haq appeared before the bench to represent Raza who was released after he agreed to a plea bargain with NAB. Haq said NAB arrested Raza and accused him of embezzling Rs195 million in Rs2.03 billion misappropriated. He said Raza reached a plea bargain after which he was released, but NAB issued a notice to the suspect and told him to deposit Rs29.5 million as operational charges.
Haq argued the demand was illegal as the Supreme Court of Pakistan, in a judgment, declared operational charges as null and void and upheld an earlier Lahore High Court judgment. The chief justice asked NAB prosecutor Jamil Saraf for his point of view to which the latter said the apex court’s judgment had been challenged. However, Saraf was informed the writ challenging the judgment has been dismissed.
The chief justice, after hearing the arguments, declared such charges as illegal and restrained NAB from taking the amount.
NAB had filed a corruption reference at a local accountability court and named 10 people in it. According to the bureau, Arshad Majeed was awarded a lucrative contract to purchase weapons and other gadgets for the K-P police. However, the contractor was arrested on Feb 21, 2013 and in his statement recorded before NAB, confessed to paying kickbacks worth Rs1 billion to several officials to get the contract.
The 10 people named in the corruption reference included former chief minister Amir Haider Hoti, his brother Amir Ghazan Hoti, former K-P IGP Malik Naveed, Jawed, Raza Ali Khan, FC commandant Abdul Majeed Marwat, former additional K-P IGP Operations Abdul Latif Gandapur, Central Police Office DIG Sajid Ali Khan, former Peshawar Headquarters DIG Mohammad Suleman, former AIG Establishment at Peshawar CPO Kashif Alam and the then DIG (telecommunication) Sadiq Kamal Orakzai.
NAB’s reference stated most of the accused policemen were members of the procurement committee. The then provincial government had awarded the contract due to deteriorating law and order in the province. The contract was awarded for the purchase of heavy weapons, bulletproof jackets, night vision goggles, semiautomatic machine guns, magazines and ammunition. However, NAB said rules and regulations were blatantly violated when the contract was awarded and this caused a loss of Rs2.03 billion to the national exchequer.
The federal and provincial governments had released Rs7 billion for police recruitment and training to enable them to fight terrorism in a better way. NAB claimed it learnt the suspects were controlling the entire process of competition for contracts. The inspection committee was also held responsible for not conducting tests and trials of the purchased weapons and gadgets.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 3rd, 2016.
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