PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday stopped the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission from harassing or arresting ANP Senator Sitara Ayaz in a case of misuse of authority and corrupt practices during her tenure as provincial minister for social welfare in the previous government.

The restraining order issued by a bench comprising Justice Irshad Qaisar and Justice Syed Afsar Shah will be effective until the next hearing on Oct 28 into Sitara Ayaz`s petition against the KPEC proceedings against her, including inquiry.

The bench also directed the commission and the National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to file comments about the petition.

The senator has challenged the proceedings, including the KPEC inquiry against her, and requested the court to order their quashing.

She also requested the court to restrain the commission from tak-ing any adverse action against her until the final disposal of the petition.

Abdul Lateef Afridi and Barrister Mudassir Ameer, lawyers for the petitioner, said their client learned by media reports that the KPEC had issued her arrest warrants though they had yet to be communicated to her.

They said the commission had leveled allegations against the petitioner that she had misappropriated funds in different projects of social welfare department.

They added that the charges under which the arrest warrant was issued had already been probed by the National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, since 2013 and now the commission has also started inquiry into the same matter.

The lawyers said under the KPEC Act, the commission couldn`t start the probe in the case when cognisance was already taken by the NAB as the latter was a federal agency.

Furthermore, they contended that the mandatory notification for setting up the KPEC was issued by the provincial government on Sep 16, 2015, due to which all the actionstakenandproceedingsconducted by the commission prior to that date were illegal and unconstitutional.

An additional deputy prosecutor general of the commission, LajbarKhan, contended that the charges in which the commission had started the inquiry and investigation were different than the one in which the NAB had been conducting the probe.

Additional prosecutor general of NAB Umar Farooq also said he would collect facts about the case whether the NAB had been conducting inquiry into the matter or not.

Also in the day, Sitara Ayaz claimed the ruling PTI was using the KPEC to disgrace officials and political rivals in the province.

Addressing a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club, the senator said she had serious reservations about the KPEC.

Flanked by ANP provincial general secretary Sardar Hussain Babak, she said the KPEC was not an accountability body and instead, it was `Imran and Pervez (Khattak) Commission.

Sitara Ayaz said she was not the only one, who felt the PTI was using the Ehtesab Commission to suppress opponents, as PTPs own minister, Ziaullah Afridi, too, had accused the chief minister of using the same tactic.

She said though she didn`t fear accountability, accountability process should be open and fair.

The senator said the recent action of the KPEC against her was more of revenge than legal action.

She said she was specifically tar-geted by the Ehtesab Commission but she would not run away and face accountability.

`The only problem in this case is that I don`t trust this body and have reservations about it,` she said.

Sitara Ayaz said her reservations about the KPEC were very much similar to those of PTI chief Imran Khan about the Election Commission of Pakistan.

She said she didn`t understand how the Ehtesab Commission could issue warrants for her arrest without showing evidence of corruption or irregularities.

The senator said she was accused of Rs1 billion corruption though the total budget of her social welfare and women development department during the last government came to Rs1.29 billion only.

She asked how one could misappropriate such a huge chunk of the total budget.

Sitara Ayaz said almost a month ago, the ANP provincial president had expressed reservations about the KPEC alleging it was being used by the PTI government as a tool to pressure and dishonour political rivals.

`He`s right in raising all those questions,` she said.

The ANP activists, who showed up in large numbers, shouted slogans against the PTI government and chief minister.