Senate extends NAB ordinance for 120 days

Caretaker law minister moves the resolution for ordinance extension

ISLAMABAD:

The upper house of parliament on Thursday extended the National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance 2023 for another 120 days with effect from October 31, 2023.

Caretaker Minister for Law Ahmad Irfan Aslam moved the resolution to extend the ordinance.

The amended law allows the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the country’s top graft buster, to keep an accused under its custody for up to 30 days instead of 14 days.

It also empowers the NAB chairman to issue a warrant of arrest during the course of an inquiry if an accused is not joining that inquiry despite notices or is willfully not cooperating in the probe.

The resolution states, "The Senate resolves to extend the National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023 (I of 2023), for a further period of one hundred and twenty days with effect from October 31, 2023, under the proviso to sub-paragraph (ii) of paragraph (a) of clause (2) of Article 89 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan."

Earlier, the minister presented the National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023 (Ordinance No. I of 2023), in the house, as required by clause (2) of Article 89 of the Constitution.

During the session, Senator Ali Zafar, a member of the PTI, questioned the legality of the NAB law amendment, adding that a three-member bench of the Supreme Court had already rejected it on September 15.

Read 'Nawaz given relief due to NAB's stance'

Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar of the PML-N, however, defended the amendment, stating that it was not person-specific. “The SC has not rejected the NAB law in toto and maintained 70% of its sections. The ordinance would help reorganize NAB,” he observed.

Senator Kamran Murtaza of the JUI-F said it would not be appropriate to extend the ordinance in the presence of an SC judgment.

Sadia Khaqan Abbasi of the PML-N described the NAO, 1999, as a repressive law imposed by a dictator. She regretted that successive democratic governments could not repeal that piece of legislation. Tahir Bizinjo commented that NAB had been misused to target political opponents in the last over five years.

Senator Irfan Saddiqui and Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed of the PML-N and Senator Manzoor Kakar of the BAP party also voiced their concerns about the role played by NAB in politics. They also questioned the transparency, efficiency, and overall effectiveness of NAB’s investigations and prosecutions.

The PML-N led coalition government made a number of amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999, the law that governs NAB, during its 16-month rule.

Various petitioners, including PTI chief Imran Khan, challenged these amendments in the apex court. A three-member bench, led by former Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial, set aside the amendments through a majority verdict on September 15.

After the SC order, NAB reopened corruption cases filed against dozens of politicians.

However, the coalition government filed an intra-court appeal (ICA) against the verdict in the Supreme Court in the light of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023.

A five-member larger bench, led by the incumbent CJP Qazi Faez Isa, took up the ICA on Tuesday, October 31, stopping accountability courts from issuing a final verdict in graft cases.