NAB asked to explain dropping of cases
A division bench of the Lahore High Court has sought a reply within two weeks from the National Accountability Bureau.
LAHORE:
A division bench of the Lahore High Court has sought a reply within two weeks from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in a petition questioning the bureau chairman’s decision to shelve references filed against 60 politicians and others.
The bench, headed by Justice Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry, passed the directions on a writ petition filed by Advocate Rana Ilmuddin Ghazi that relies on press reports about the dropping of criminal references against various influential people, most of them politicians. The references were prepared during Nawaz Sharif’s second stint as prime minister of Pakistan.
According to the press reports, the chairman had said that the cases were being dropped because the investigation of these references had not progressed. The petitioner contended that NAB had also previously tried to drop these references, most of which concerned PPP politicians.
He said it was wrong that parliamentarians were openly complaining about government corruption, while NAB was quietly dropping cases against the corrupt. He added that the role of the incumbent chairman, Syed Deedar Hussain Shah, in dropping the cases cast doubt on the merit of his appointment to the office.
The petitioner argued that the NAB chairman did not have the authority to do away with these references on his own. That power rested with a court of law, he said.
He asked the court to seek the record of the references in question to determine what progress the investigations had made, to rule whether the chairman had the authority to drop the cases, and, if not, ask him why he tried to abolish the references instead of placing them before the courts.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 15th, 2011.
A division bench of the Lahore High Court has sought a reply within two weeks from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in a petition questioning the bureau chairman’s decision to shelve references filed against 60 politicians and others.
The bench, headed by Justice Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry, passed the directions on a writ petition filed by Advocate Rana Ilmuddin Ghazi that relies on press reports about the dropping of criminal references against various influential people, most of them politicians. The references were prepared during Nawaz Sharif’s second stint as prime minister of Pakistan.
According to the press reports, the chairman had said that the cases were being dropped because the investigation of these references had not progressed. The petitioner contended that NAB had also previously tried to drop these references, most of which concerned PPP politicians.
He said it was wrong that parliamentarians were openly complaining about government corruption, while NAB was quietly dropping cases against the corrupt. He added that the role of the incumbent chairman, Syed Deedar Hussain Shah, in dropping the cases cast doubt on the merit of his appointment to the office.
The petitioner argued that the NAB chairman did not have the authority to do away with these references on his own. That power rested with a court of law, he said.
He asked the court to seek the record of the references in question to determine what progress the investigations had made, to rule whether the chairman had the authority to drop the cases, and, if not, ask him why he tried to abolish the references instead of placing them before the courts.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 15th, 2011.