Flaws detected in Ehtesab Commission case.

PESHAWAR -- Following a yearlong struggle, former provincial minister Ziaullah Afridi received crucial records under the law on right to information from the anti-corruption establishment regarding a high-profile case in which he is charged by the erstwhile Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission (KPEC) with committing multiple illegalities in the mines and mineral department.

The records included minute sheets of several observations made by two KPEC officials, who pointed out certain illegalities and loopholes on part of the investigation team in the case against Mr Afridi and even warned that the case would fail in the trial court.

The records were provided on the orders of the KP Information Commission, which had issued directions on June 5 to the provincial establishment department and ACE in this regard.

He had approached the RTI Commission in Apr last year after the government departments were reluctant to produce those records.

Ex-minister gets records regarding illegalities in mine case under RTI law

In the provided records, two of the minutes sheets were written by law officer of the commission Nawaz Khattak and three other by additional deputy prosecutor general (DPG) Qazi Babar Irshad.

Information commissioner Riaz Khan Daudzai, in his detailed order, has overruled the government contention that the requested record was in exempted category and could not be provided to the applicant, Mr Afridi.

'The commission placed the letter of the Director of the Anti- Corruption Establishment on record and held that as such neither any specific provision of the KP RTI Act or any other law had been referred to whereby exemptions has been sought in the matter in question nor prima facie requested information hit any exempted category,' the commissioner ruled.

Interestingly, when the complainant had initially filed application with the establishment department on Mar 13, 2019, the ACE in a letter to the secretary establishment had clearly stated that the provision of the requisite record may directly result in altering the decision of reference in the Court.

Mr Afridi, who was an MPA elected on the PTI ticket from Peshawar in the 2013 general elections, was arrested by the KPEC on July 9, 2015, initially on the charge of facilitating illegal mining in the province when he was first special assistant to the chief minister on mines and mineral development and then minister of the same department. Subsequently, the Ehtesab Commission had registered...