Bukhari had complained that the Supreme Court was unnecessarily pressuring NAB officials in investigations related to high-profile matters. PHOTO: FILE
The Supreme Court on Monday summoned a senior official from the Ministry of Law and Justice over a notification on the formation of a fact finding commission to probe the contents of a letter written by the chairman of the National Accountability Bureau to President Asif Ali Zardari.
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry directed Sohail Ahmed Qureshi, a senior joint secretary, to appear in court on Tuesday (today) to explain whether a notification was issued to form an inquiry commission.
The chief justice has taken suo motu notice of news items that say that the federal government had decided to form a commission headed by Justice (retd) Nawaz Abbasi to probe allegations raised by NAB chairman Admiral (retd) Fasih Bukhari in his letter to President Zardari on pressure being exerted by the SC in different cases.
In his letter, Bukhari had complained that the Supreme Court was unnecessarily pressuring NAB officials in investigations related to high-profile matters, especially the rental power projects case.
According to the law ministry’s statement, it has withdrawn the notification of the appointment of a commission regarding the interference of some outside institutions in the working of NAB.
“This notification was issued by mistake and the law ministry has ordered that it be withdrawn immediately,” said the spokesman of the ministry.
During the proceedings, the SC registrar’s office submitted a note before the bench about the news pertaining to constitution of commission invariably appearing in all leading newspapers.
On February 25, the bench observed that news items had appeared in two Urdu dailies saying that the government had formed a two-member commission headed by Justice (retd) Nawaz Abbasi following the NAB chairman’s letter to the president to supervise the Supreme Court’s affairs.
However, the law secretary denied the media reports.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 19th, 2013.
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