PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Wednesday granted interim bail to former MNA Sardar Mohammad Mushtaq, who was arrested few days ago by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission on the charge of selling his land at exorbitant rate for a Workers Welfare Board project.

Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Ikramullah Khan asked the petitioner, Sardar Mushtaq, to furnish two surety bonds valuing Rs1 million each to secure release.

The bench issued the order while hearing a petition file d by the suspect, who insisted the National Accountability Bureau had conducted an inquiry into the matter but closed it over failure to prove charges against him.

During the 2008 general elections, the petitioner was elected MNA from Haripur on the ticket of the PML-N.

He later joined the PPP but rejoined the PML-N.

The petitioner was arrested on Sept 30 and was remanded into the KPEC custody by an accountability court on Oct 1 for nine days.

The commission has alleged that the WWB had purchased450kanals ofland in Haripur district to develop a labour complex and that the petitioner had sold 58 kanals of land to the board at a price much higher than its actual one and thus, causing heavylosstothe exchequer.

The petitioner`s lawyer, Nasir Aslam, said in 2008, the NAB had begun an inquiry against his client, a noted landlord and former MNA and MPA, on the charge of selling his land to the WWB at exorbitant rate but closed it as the charges couldn`t be proved.

He said his client had developed his land and it was of much higher value than the one claimed earlier by the NAB and then by KPEC.

The lawyer said several political rivals of the petitioner had given applications to the NAB in the same case but as the inquiry had already been closed due to a lack of evidence, the NAB didn`t take further steps in that regard.

Mr. Aslam claimed that a relative of the petitioner had contested the provincial assembly elections from PK51 Haripur HI in 2013 but lost.

He added that the lost candidate suspected the petitioner didn`t support him in the elections and that when the former was appointed to the KPEC, he got an inquiry initiated into the matter though it was closed by the NAB, just to settle a score with the latter.

The lawyer referred to the KPEC Act, 2014, saying the NAB was a federal agency and once it had conducted inquiry in a case, the KPEC had no authority to reopen that case.

KPEC deputy prosecutor generalZahidAmanopposed the petition saying the petitioner was still in the custody of the commission and that it would be too early to grant him ball. Bureau Report