PESHAWAR: A bench of the Peshawar High Court on Wednesday granted bail to an official of the Expanded Program on Immunisation and another health department official in an Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission case on misappropriation of funds and corrupt practices.

Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Mussarat Hilali asked the suspects EPI deputy director Dr Janbaz Afridi and storekeeper Zahid Ali -to furnish two surety bonds of Rs10 million each.

The bench was hearing petitions filed by Faisal Janbaz Afridi, son of Janbaz Afridi, and Zahid Ali against the respective arrests under the KPEC Act 2014.

Both the suspects were arrested on Jun 17 by the ehtesab commission alleging that Dr Janbaz hadmisappropriated funds worth millions of rupees allocated for EPI.

It further alleged that storekeeper Zahid Ali had set up a fake firm by the name of Adil Enterprises and different procurement contracts were given to the said firm.

Lawyer Abdul Lateef Afridi appeared for Faisal Janbaz and Attiqur Rehman for Zahid Ali.

Lateef Afridi contended that the petitioner had challenged the arrest of his father on different grounds. He added that the KPEC Act had also been challenged as it was in conflict with different laws.

He pointed out that neither any provision was given in the said Act regarding sending a suspect to a prison on judicial remand nor the Code of Criminal Procedure was made applicable to the proceedings under the said Act.

The lawyer contended that as the CrPC was not applicable to cases under the Ehtesab CommissionAct, therefore the detention of the detainee Dr Janbaz Afridi was illegal.

He pointed out that in several other cases the high court had already granted bail to suspects on the same ground.

The lawyer added that the Rule of consistency applied to the two petitioners and that till final disposal of the petitions, the suspects should be freed on interim bail.

BAIL REJECTED: The bench dismissed the bail petition of former land acquisition collector of Provincial Housing Authority (PHA) Naveed Qadir in cases of embezzling funds of different projects.

The suspect was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, along with a former director general of PHA Javed Ahmad and their alleged front man Mohammad Asif.

A special prosecutor of NAB,Umer Farooq, contended that the accused along with the other persons had misappropriated Rs 400 million on the pretext of land acquisition for PHA Housing Scheme at Moza Darwaza Nathiagali 2012. He added that payment for the said land was not even approved by the competent authority but the PHA had initiated the scheme without obtaining no objection certificate from concerned departments.

Later on, he argued that the petitioner was booked in another case of misappropriating Rs 18 million in the purchase oflandfor a housing scheme in Surezai area of Peshawar. Instead of paying to the rightful land payments were made to the front man Muhammad Asif.

The petitioner`s counsel argued that the trial was still in initial stages to the misery of his client.

He said the petitioner should be freed on bail till conclusion of the trial.