Posting orders: NICL, Hajj scam probe chiefs not reinstated

On May 6, the government had promised to comply.

LAHORE:

Despite clear court orders, the authorities have not yet revoked the posting orders of former officers originally investigating the Hajj scam and the NICL land scandal, including Syed Javed Bukhari, Hussain Asghar, Zafar Ahmad Qureshi.

On May 6, the government had informed the Supreme Court that it had quashed transfer orders of FIA’s key investigation officers and would soon issue orders to place them back on their original positions.

Hafeez Pirzada, the government’s lawyer, had submitted before the apex court that a summary to be issued in compliance with the Supreme Court’s orders for sending Javed Bukhari and Hussain Asgher to their previous positions had been sent to the prime minister. He said that the notification would be issued “as soon as the prime minister returned from abroad”. The court had later adjourned the hearing till May 13.

During the previous hearing, the Supreme Court had warned the government to withdraw transfer notifications of FIA investigators probing the Hajj and NICL scams, otherwise it would take action on its own.

On Thursday, the Establishment Division issued orders, posting PSP officer of BPS-20 Syed Tahseen Shah as an additional director-general at FIA Headquarters in Islamabad under Section 10 in BPS-21, instead of grade-20.

The public servant can be posted anywhere at any time by the government but under normal circumstances, this practice is not adopted by the authorities and this section is only used for the government’s favourites, a senior FIA officer told The Express Tribune.

The DG FIA also transferred two deputy directors of its Punjab bureau, including Deputy Director of the National Response Centre for Cyber Crimes (NR-3C), Punjab, Shahdid Hussain who was posted as deputy director of FIA’s Faisalabad Circle. He is replaced by Deputy Director, Admin-III, Sajad Akram Chaudhry.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2011.