Court orders removal of 500 ‘cleared’ officials

Officers’ corruption was proven but they were reinstated after entering into plea bargains

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) gave on Thursday three days to the provincial government to remove as many 500 officers named by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to have been reinstated on their posts after entering into plea bargains with the anti-graft watchdog.

A two-judge bench, headed by SHC Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M Sheikh, also directed the provincial chief secretary to submit a report that must be supported by his personal affidavit to the effect that action was taken against all such officers in compliance with the court's order.

The issue came up during the hearing of a petition filed by Ghulam Mustafa Lund who had approached the court against alleged harassment by NAB authorities despite having voluntarily returned the amount misappropriated by him in a financial scam.



At the outset of the proceedings, a special prosecutor for the national anti-graft watchdog filed a report of the officers who had been reinstated despite their involvement in corruption having been proven. These officers voluntarily returned the embezzled money to NAB.

NAB statistics

The prosecutor claimed that there were more than 500 officers who were found involved in corrupt practices in inquiries and subsequently opted to voluntarily return the embezzled money by entering plea bargains with NAB.

The prosecutor said NAB had recovered a total of Rs16.6 billion from these officers under the voluntary return scheme.

Sindh government's statistics

On the other hand, provincial advocate-general Barrister Zamir Ghumro informed the court that there were 1,309 officers against whom inquiries were initiated but had been restored on their posts in the province after entering into plea bargains.

The court was further informed that 27 such officers were dismissed from job while inquiries against around 100 other officers were still under way. The law officer sought more time to file report about the fate of such inquiries.



The judges kept aside the case, personally calling the chief secretary by noon to explain what action was initiated against those officers, whose corruption were proven and they had returned the money.

AG Ghumro informed the court that the chief secretary had left to attend a Senate standing committee meeting.

The two-judges ordered the chief secretary to immediately take action and remove the officers who were restored to their posts after confessing to their corruption and returning the amount under the voluntary return scheme.

They gave the top provincial bureaucrat three days to comply with the court's directives and personally submit a report supported by his personal affidavit to the effect that action was taken against all such officers in the province.

The judges also directed AG Ghumro to submit his report on action initiated against the corrupt officers by the next date of hearing, fixed on October 24.



Case history

The petitioner, Ghulam Mustafa Lund, said he was serving as an accounts officer in the finance department in Thatta district in 2016 when NAB launched an investigation against him for possessing immovable assets beyond his known source of income.

The petitioner confessed his involvement in the scam and voluntarily returned Rs370 million as provided under Section 25 of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999. Therefore, he was cleared of the charges and restored to his government job.

The judges were told that after some time the federal investigation agency initiated an inquiry into the same scam in Dadu district, where he was posted as a district accounts officer. In the meantime, he alleged that NAB again jumped in and was harassing him by issuing call-up notice despite the fact that he had voluntarily returned the amount.

Therefore, the court was pleaded to declare NAB’s call-up notice illegal.