NICL case: Contempt notices issued to highest-ranking bureaucrats

SC accuses civil servants of intervening in judicial matters.

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued contempt of court notices to three civil servants, including two of the highest-ranking bureaucrats in the country, for allegedly interfering in the investigation into the multi-billion-rupee fraud at the National Insurance Company Ltd (NICL).

A three-member bench of the apex court comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Ameer Hani Muslim was hearing a contempt of court case against the former director general of the Federal Investigation Agency, Malik Iqbal.

The court issued contempt notices to the interior secretary, the Establishment Division secretary and the Principal Secretary to the prime minister, asking them to explain by June 23 why the investigating officer in the case, Zafar Qureshi, was transferred on verbal orders in the middle of his investigation.

Malik Iqbal had been charged with contempt of court for having ordered Qureshi’s transfer, since Qureshi was investigating the NICL scam on orders from the Supreme Court. The court said that it would announce its verdict on Iqbal’s case when the other three bureaucrats submit their replies.

Iqbal, meanwhile, testified that the principal secretary to the prime minister had dispatched the transfer orders to the Establishment Division (the civil service headquarters) on verbal orders from Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. Interior Secretary Qamar Zaman Chaudhry confirmed this account.

The court observed that sidelining Qureshi from the investigation and his transfer was a violation of the law.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2011.