PESHAWAR: A special anti-corruption court has granted bail to former provincial minister and leader of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Shakeel Ahmad in a case of alleged illegal appointments in district headquarters hospital Malakand.

The senior special judge, Babar Ali Khan, accepted bail plea of the suspect on condition of furnishing two sureties of Rs80,000 each. The court ruled that the petitioner was neither member of the relevant selection committee nor the appointing authority to make those appointments.

The FIR against the petitioner was registered on May 10 by the anti-corruption establishment (ACE) at anti-corruption police station Malakand.

The complainant in the FIR was the president of PWD Labour Union, Gul Zaman Khan, who submitted a complaint to the ACE director wherein he charged the petitioner of carrying out illegal appointments of some Class-IV employees in the hospital and depriving deserving persons of their right to appointment.

Court also extends pre-arrest bail of three ex-lawmakers from Mardan

The complainant also charged him along with some officials of the health department of embezzling government funds meant for purchase of furniture and medical equipment, etc.

Advocates Malik Ajmal Khan, Ali Zaman, Inam Yousafzai and Alam Khan Adenzai appeared for the petitioner and contended that he was falsely implicated in the instant cases with mala-fide intentions. They contended that the petitioner could not be kept behind bars merely on basis of allegations.

They stated that there was no evidence against the petitioner and he was neither member of the selection committee nor the appointing authority.

The judge observed that no exact amount of alleged corruption whatsoever was determined by the investigating officer in the final report and the audit report was also silent in that regard.

The court observed that the petitioner was also remanded by the judicial magistrate of Malakand to the ACE authorities but despite that he did not admit his guilt before the court nor any incriminating material was recovered from him.

Moreover, the court observed that the sections of law mentioned in the FIR did not attract any of the provision of the restrictive clause of section 497 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Meanwhile, the court extended till July 11 the interim pre-arrest bail earlier granted to three former MPAs of PTI from Mardan -- Iftikhar Mashwani, Abdul Salam Afridi and Malik Shaukat -- in a case of illegal appointments in the fisheries department.

The ACE, in an FIR registered in Mardan on May 10, charged the three petitioners along with several other former lawmakers from Mardan for carrying out the alleged illegal appointments.

The ACE claimed that the suspects inflicted a loss of Rs2.35 million to the government exchequer through those appointments. In the same case, former minister of state Ali Mohammad Khan was also arrested and was granted bail by the court on June 27.

Also, the court extended to July 6 the interim pre-arrest bail given to former MPA of PTI Fazal Hakeem accused of making illegal appointments in Nawaz Sharif Kidney Hospital, Swat.

The ACE alleged that the petitioner along with other lawmakers from Swat made illegal appointments in the hospital and inflicted loss on the government exchequer.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2023