NAB to review, expedite pending appeals

Prosecution wing informs chairman as many as 605 appeals are pending in the superior courts.

ISLAMABAD: As many as 605 civil and criminal appeals against high ranking officials were filed in the superior courts over the last six months, officials of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) said.

The prosecution wing of NAB informed its chairman that as many as 161 appeals are pending in the Supreme Court while 444 appeals are pending in all the high courts.

In this regard, director generals of NAB, in a meeting on Thursday, took important decisions to augment and boost the overall administration work to deal with pending cases.

Chairman NAB Syed Deedar Hussain Shah headed the meeting titled: 16th DGs’ Conference at NAB headquarters, Islamabad.

The director generals informed the meeting that some 348 appeals were filed by the accused to precede their cases in the courts. As many as 1,056 writ petitions were filed out of which 1,045 have been filed by the accused during the same period.

The meeting decided to follow the stay order cases that had been pending for a while. Only 43 references were filed against 32 high ranking officials last year as the post of the NAB chairman remained vacant for a good five months.

The meeting also agreed to hold a fortnightly video conference between the NAB headquarters and other regions to expedite the process of the cases. It was also decided that the name of the overseas wing would be changed to the international cooperation wing.

The meeting also decided that in order to clear the backlog it would review all the cases pending before 2005 through a committee headed by the concerned director generals and operations to scrutinise whether the cases would be sent for further process or be recommended for closure due to insufficient evidence.

All such cases would be referred to the NAB headquarters for a final decision to ensure transparency in the system.

The DG awareness and prevention informed that the focus of the anti-corruption strategy must simultaneously be placed on preventive measures along with enforcement.

It was also decided that NAB shall monitor the tender notices and ads for contracts published in the print media.

The DG Balochistan highlighted the various cases including misappropriation in the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) through fake beneficiaries, food department, police, cases of public cheating and development works by using substandard materials which were being handled by the Balochistan bureau.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th,  2011.