SC judge asks why NAB getting ‘politicised’

Justice Qazi Faez Isa says graft buster putting too much effort in some cases but none in others

ISLAMABAD: Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court has asked why the country’s top accountability watchdog, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), is becoming ‘politicised’.

“NAB’s policy to investigate corruption cases is not uniform as in some cases it is putting all its efforts but in some other cases it is not doing enough,” Justice Isa said on Tuesday  as a member of a three-judge bench hearing bail application of a section officer in Sindh Information department.

The bench, headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmad and also comprising Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel, expressed annoyance over the performance of NAB.



Justice Isa noted that billions of rupees were recovered from the residence of Mushtaq Raisani but NAB struck a plea bargain deal with him. He said a case could be registered against NAB higher-ups in Raisani case.

“At least NAB should set a uniform principle to deal with corruption cases as its deals with every case according to its discretion,” he said.

Justice Gulzar said NAB had not shown any performance except for doing plea bargains with the accused persons. He asked a senior NAB official to point out any case in which it had recovered any amount.

He lamented that billions of rupees had been spent on NAB but nobody knew the fate of corruption cases. “NAB is only creating anguish for everyone,” he added.

After going through the case record, the judge noted that it seemed NAB was not interested in concluding the trial.

To Justice Gulzar’s query as to who was the prosecutor in the case, the NAB additional prosecutor general (APG) said he did not know his name but he was from Karachi.

The bench noted that the matter involved corruption of Rs5 billion but no effort had been made to conclude the trial as “the local prosecutor just comes to get money on every hearing.”

When the APG said a number of persons had been convicted in NAB cases, Justice Gulzar said, “Conviction is different from recovery of money.”

The Supreme Court, he said, rejected bail in Raisani case but NAB facilitated his release from trial court. “The SC rejects bail of the accused but he manages his release after two months,” he added.

Later, the bench rejected the bail plea of accused Sarang Latif. The court told his counsel, Rasheed A Rizvi, that the SC had directed the NAB chairman to conclude the trial expeditiously.

Last month, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar also noted that the anti-corruption watchdog was creating lacunas in cases which resulted in acquittal of accused persons.



“Don’t defame judges. Judges are not sitting here to clean the dirt of NAB which is busy but doing nothing,” the CJP had told Akbar Tarar, the NAB’s APG.

He had also made it clear that the top court would not tolerate if NAB left lacunas in corruption cases. “In this scenario… what is the point of NAB summoning people?” the CJP had asked the APG to cite a single case which had reached its logical conclusion in the last seven months.

He had ordered the APG to inform the NAB chairman and the prosecutor general to brief the court on NAB’s performance in his chamber.

The top judge had also expressed anger over the misbehaviour of the NAB investigation officers with the accused persons during interrogation.