PESHAWAR: Accepting the petition of a former deputy secretary (establishment) facing trial for the alleged accumulation of illegal assets, the Peshawar High Court has ordered the National Accountability Bureau to return Rs2.317 million paid under the voluntary return (VR) deal seven years ago.

A bench consisting of Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Ijaz Anwer accepted a petition filed by former deputy secretary Riaz Hussain Khattak seeking orders for the NAB to return Rs2.317 million deposited by him on Jan 16, 2015, under the voluntary return agreement.

The petitioner claimed that he was ‘coerced’ to make the VR agreement with the NAB though he was innocent and had not committed anything declared a crime by the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999.

He contended that now he had been facing trial for the same offence, therefore, the said deposited amount should be returned back to him.

Ex-deputy secy insists he was coerced for ‘voluntary return’ deal with NAB

The respondents in the petition were the NAB through its chairman, the NAB Peshawar’s director general, and the federal government.

The petitioner’s counsel, Ashfaq Ahmad Daudzai, said that the NAB had initiated an inquiry against his client on allegation of accumulation of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

He said that during course of inquiry the petitioner was suffering from Parkinson and

some other diseases and he was under acute physical and mental stress.

The lawyer contended that the respondent succeeded in compelling the petitioner to sign VR agreement as result of coercion, humiliation and pressure exerted on him.

He said that the petitioner had deposited Rs2.317 million in the name of NAB’s chairman out of total liability calculated by the NAB of Rs6.815 million, whereas rest of the amount had to be paid in two equal installment s as per existing policy.

Mr Daudzai said that the NAB later issued certain notices to the petitioner for the default of payment of the rest of the amount which was challenged in the high court through a petition.

He pointed out that the said petition was decided on April 26, 2017, wherein it was held that the petitioner could not be pressured to deposit the rest of the amount as against the mandate of the statute rather recovery could be made under Section 33 of the NAO and the impugned notices were set aside.

The counsel said that the respondents were aggrieved with the said judgment and they challenged it before the Supreme Court, which was allowed on June 19, 2019, on the basis of the submission made by the present petitioner’s counsel there that he was no longer interested in voluntary return deal, so the respondents were directed to proceed in accordance with the law.

He said that the NAB later re-authorised inquiry/investigation in the case, while on the completion of investigation, a reference was filed against the petitioner that was pending trial before the accountability court.

Mr Daudzai argued that as the reference in question was the result of the inquiry into the matter for which that VR amount was deposited, his client approached the accountability court for the return of that amount to him, but the application was turned down on Nov 12, 2021.

He contended that the act of the respondents while retaining the amount in question after the filing of the reference was against the provisions of the NAO regarding the voluntary return deals.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2022