ISLAMABAD A three-member Supreme Court bench on Tuesday acquitted former chief secretary Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Khalid Aziz, of corruption charges in NAB case. The bench, comprising Justice Muhammad Sair Ali, Justice Rahmat Hussain Jafferi and Justice Tariq Parvez, was hearing an appeal of Khalid Aziz, former chief secretary Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, against the judgement of Peshawar High Court (PHC). An accountability Court on January 17, 2002, had indicted Khalid Aziz and two others in a NAB reference. The accused, Khalid Aziz, his wife Nilofar Aziz and former cashier of the Education Department, Khadim Hussain, had pleaded not guilty to the charge and had decided to stand trial. Khalid Aziz was charged with using his influence, when he was additional chief secretary, to award a contract of Rs15 million to his firm, Hayat and Brothers, for provision of furniture to the primary education department. It was alleged that the accused had provided substandard items to the department and caused a loss to the national exchequer. He was also charged of possessing illegal assets beyond his known source of income. The Accountability Court had sentenced Aziz for four years imprisonment and imposed fine of Rs50 million. However, the PHC not only reduced his sentence from four years to two years imprisonment but also reduced the fine from Rs50 million to Rs3.8 million. Senator Waseem Sajjad, senior counsel for Khalid Aziz, contended before the court that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had not estimated resources of the former secretary before or after filing the reference against him. He said in fact his client was innocent but was awarded sentence merely on the basis of unproved allegations and without concrete evidence by the accountability court, thus deserved to be acquitted. When the NAB Prosecutor Asghar Rana could not prove the allegations against Khalid Aziz, the court exonerated him from all the charges.