NAB chief faces court challenge

Petitions have been filed in both the Lahore High Court (LHC) and Sindh High Court (SHC) against his appointment.

LAHORE/KARACHI: A top official of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is facing a legal challenge over his appointment four days after taking over the post.

Petitions have been filed in both the Lahore High Court (LHC) and Sindh High Court (SHC) against the appointment of Syed Deedar Hussain Shah, a retired judge, with an identical plea that the Supreme Court chief justice be consulted in the matter.

In what is billed as an intense legal showdown, Barrister Iqbal Jaffree on Tuesday moved an application before the LHC requesting that a larger bench headed by a permanent judge of the high court be constituted to hear his constitutional petition challenging the appointment of Deedar Shah as NAB chairman.

In his petition, Barrister Jaffree submitted that Deedar was not competent for the post and that his appointment was against the Constitution since, under the 18th Amendment, consultation with chief justice of Pakistan and leader of opposition in the National Assembly was necessary for this appointment, which has not been done in this case. He claimed that 15 clauses of the Constitution have been violated in the appointment of Deedar.

He stated that the choice was not on merit and it was only a political appointment. He said Deedar had been elected MPA twice on a PPP ticket and he had defended President Zardari in corruption cases as his lawyer, which was not sufficient qualification to hold this office.

The petitioner claimed that he was more educated than Mr Deedar and he had formally applied for the post some 15 years ago and he was denied the position.

He appealed to the court to declare Deedar’s appointment as unconstitutional. In Karachi, a contempt of court application and another seeking a restraining injunction against the NAB chief was filed on Tuesday by a former deputy prosecutor general of NAB, Muhammad Siddique Mirza.

Filing an application for the initiation of contempt of court proceedings against the federal law minister, federal law secretary, Justice (retd) Deedar Hussain Shah, and deputy prosecutor general NAB Irfan Qadir, the applicant relied on a judgment by the apex court in the case of Asfandyar Wali vs the State and said that as per the judgment, the appointment of the NAB chairman and prosecutor general shall be in consultation with the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP). The petitioner stated that some amendments were made in the NAB rules under an ordinance in 2002, substituting the CJP with the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly. The apex court again in another judgment, commonly known as the Dr Mubashir Hasan case, ruled that the judgment in the Asfandyar Wali case is to be followed.

The contemnors (alleged) are violating the judgments by the Supreme Court and a summary sent by them without consulting the CJP is in contempt of court, the applicant said in his application submitted at the Karachi Registry of the apex court.

In a later development, Mirza also filed a constitutional petition under Article 199 of the Constitution of Pakistan 1973, citing the Federation of Pakistan, Justice (retd) Deedar Hussain Shah and NAB deputy prosecutor general Irfan Qadir as respondents.

The appointment of Deedar Shah is against the judgments of the Supreme Court. The petitioner urged the court to declare as illegal the impugned notification appointing Justice Deedar to the top NAB post, order a de-notification of the same and stop the new chairman from working, as interim relief.

The petition was accepted by the petition branch and was numbered CP 2931/2010. The petition is likely to be heard on Thursday by a division bench of the SHC.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 13^th, 2010.