PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Tuesday stopped National Accountability Bureau from recovery of operational charges of around Rs30 million from a former special assistant to a former chief minister, Syed Masoom Shah, who had earlier entered into plea bargain in a case of possession of illegal assets.

The bench comprising Justice Nisar Hussain and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth issued notice to National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for explaining its position and directed that till further order the controversial amount should not be recovered.

The bench issued the order in a writ petition filed by Syed Masoom Shah, who served as special assistant to former chief minister Ameer Haider Hoti, challenging the demand of operational charges by NAB as illegal and against judgments of the superior courts.

An accountability court had on April 28 approved a plea bargain application of Mr Shah on condition of payment of Rs258.75 million to NAB. He was arrested by the NAB on August 11, 2015, on charges of possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income and was subsequently granted bail by the high court on March 22.

Issues notice to NAB to explain its position

Barrister Waqar Ahmad appeared for the petitioner and stated that according to the agreement taken place between the petitioner and NAB, his client had deposited Rs91.75 million as down payment or first instalment, whereas subsequently he had to pay two more instalments of Rs85.387 million and Rs 67.612 million, respectively.

He stated that the petitioner had to pay the third installment till June 30. He added that the third instalment also included an amount of around Rs30 million as operational or incidental charges imposed by NAB.

Barrister Waqar pointed out that the superior courts had already declared the imposition of the operational charges by NAB as illegal. He added that Lahore High Court had first declared the operational charges by NAB as illegal in a case and the said judgment was upheld by Supreme Court of Pakistan.

It is worth mentioning that on February 18 an accountability court had rejected NAB’s application for giving final approval to the plea bargain of Mr Shah, citing several reasons for that.

The said order was challenged by the petitioner as well as by NAB before the high court. The high court had on March 22 granted bail to the petitioner and referred the case back to accountability court for deciding the plea bargain application afresh.

The petitioner had remained nazim of Shabqadar tehsil in Charssada from 2001 to 2004 and subsequently served as special assistant to chief minister during 2010 to 2013 during the coalition government of ANP and PPP in the province.

Earlier, in February this year the high court had declared as illegal the demand of operational cost by NAB from a distant relative of Ameer Haider Hoti, who had made a plea bargain in a high-profile case of receiving kickbacks in procurement of weapons for police department.

In that case, NAB was demanding operational charges to the tune of Rs29.5 million from Raza Ali, brother-in-law of Ameer Haider Hoti’s brother Ghazan Khan.

Raza Ali was arrested by NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in January 2014. He was set free on bail by the high court on January 29, 2015, after he agreed to enter into plea bargain with NAB and to return Rs195 million, which he had received from a private contractor, Arshad Majeed, who was awarded most of the contracts of procurement of weapons and other equipment.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2016