PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has stopped the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from arresting 27 officials of the Customs Department for their alleged involvement in illegal import of certain machinery.
A division bench, comprising Justice Abdul Shakoor and Justice Syed Attique Shah, issued the restraining order in a writ petition of the 27 Customs officials, including Athar Naveed and others. The court also sought reply from NAB chairman and director general of KP NAB before the next hearing.
Barrister Waqar, counsel for the petitioners, submitted that Jan Builders, a private construction company, had imported heavy construction machinery in 2016 under the Import Policy. The lawyer said that after some time, the Customs officials sealed the machinery and registered a case against the company, with a claim that the machinery had been imported illegally.
The lawyer argued that the Customs Department then started process for auction of the sealed machinery, which the high court stopped and also issued a notice to the officials concerned.
However, he said, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa NAB also started an inquiry in the matter and claimed that millions of rupees loss was caused to the national exchequer through the import of the machinery.
