Lingering impasse: SC refuses to extend NAB chief appointment date

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the government’s plea seeking a month’s extension in the deadline for the appointment of chairman and prosecutor general of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

A two-member bench of the apex court comprising Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, while rejecting the plea, announced that no application has been filed for the suspension of the apex court’s June 21 order.

The court observed that the conduct of the federation seemed to be ‘casual and non-serious’. It said that no application was filed by the federation for the suspension or for a review against the judgment of the Supreme Court’s June 21 order. Therefore, the judgment is “operational”.

On July 20, the government had sought a one month extension for the appointment of chairman NAB, besides praying for an early hearing of its review petition against the court’s judgment, which overturned the appointment of Syed Deedar Hussain Shah as NAB chairman.

In its petition, filed through Additional Attorney General (AAG) KK Agha, the government had requested the apex court to extend the deadline for appointing a chairman by one month as the date directed by the court expired on July 22.

The government filed the application in response to a directive of the apex court in a case titled ‘Al Jihad Trust’ on June 21, giving a month for the respondent to appoint a chairman for NAB.

A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Javed Iqbal, had declared the appointment of chairman NAB justice (retd) Deedar Hussain Shah as ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘illegal’ on a plea moved by leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

A review of the judgment was sought in terms of constitutional remedy under Article 188 of the Constitution moved by Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, senior counsel of the apex court, on April 24. The review plea has not come up for hearing as yet.

“If the federal government was to appoint a new chairman NAB and later find that its petition had been allowed it would find itself in an awkward and embarrassing position of having appointed two chairmen which is not permitted under the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance 1999,” the petition stated.

It requested the court to take up the review petition and decide it at the earliest in order to avoid a conflicting situation.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th,  2011.