Writ petition: Workers Welfare Board challenges raids on their offices
Petition says they are not answerable to the Anti-Corruption Department.
Petition says they are not answerable to the Anti-Corruption Department. PHOTO: FILE
The secretary Workers Welfare Board (WWB) has filed a writ petition at the Peshawar High Court (PHC), challenging the recent raids of the Anti-Corruption Department on their offices in Peshawar and Kohat, in which they claim valuable records have been taken without any prior notification or permission.
The WWB secretary filed the petition through his lawyer Arshad Ali, in which he termed the Anti-Corruption Department, Chief Secretary Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), provincial director of National Accountability Bureau (NAB), and Chairman WWB, Islamabad, as the respondents.
“The Anti-Corruption Department is a provincial institution and its jurisdiction is limited to investigation of provincial departments. Hence, their raids on our offices are illegal,” the writ reads.
The petition mentions that NAB K-P started an inquiry in 2010, which is yet to be completed; but the Anti-Corruption Department raided the offices without the permission of any magistrate.
It is further mentioned that the provincial standing committee called the staff of WWB in 2012. The provincial chief secretary wrote a letter to the law department for them to clarify the matter. The department responded that the board works under the federal government and is not answerable to the provincial standing committee.
“The board has given a legal notice to the Anti Corruption Department, the result of which is not yet known. If NAB is conducting an inquiry, then the raids on November 29 should be declared illegal and the provincial government should be stopped from interfering in our work,” the petition reads.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 4th, 2013.