Education officer denied bail in corruption case

Petitioner accused of illegally appointing teaching, non-teaching staff in education dept

KARACHI: The former district officer for elementary education, Mumtaz Ali Shaikh, approached the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday for a bail to avoid arrest in the teachers' illegal appointments case.

A division bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, issued notices to the additional deputy prosecutor-general of the National Accountability Bureau (Nab), the Anti-Corruption Establishment and others to file comments.

Shaikh said the chief minister had issued orders for his suspension on April 24, 2013, over allegations of illegal appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff in the education department, however, the inquiry was not completed till his retirement on December 31, 2014.

Advocate Mansoorul Haq Solangi stated that recently the media had reported about the likely action to be taken against the government servants by Nab.

Since the CM ordered his suspension and the matter was later referred to the anti-corruption establishment and Nab, they failed to complete the inquiry when the petitioner was in service, the lawyer pointed out. He argued that such an inordinate and deliberate delay in the inquiry showed malafide intentions of the authorities and was a violation of the law.

The court was pleaded to grant pre-arrest bail to Shaikh, who himself wanted to join the investigation, but apprehended his arrest at the hands of Nab officials. The two judges observed that since no notice for interrogation was lodged against the petitioner there was no cause of action to grant bail.

The bench issued, however, notices to the NAB additional deputy prosecutor-general and others to file their comments by July 8.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2015.