Victimisation?: Govt issues ex-NADRA chief’s arrest warrant

FIA has registered an FIR against Tariq Malik for concealing facts, abuse of power.

ISLAMABAD:

Before advertising to fill in the top slot at the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), the government has issued arrest warrants for NADRA’s former chairman Tariq Malik, while his name has also been put on the Exit Control List (ECL).

Despite knowing that Malik is currently out of country, a team of three low-cadre Federal Investigation Agency’s employees on Saturday visited Malik’s residence to arrest him in an FIA registered FIR under Section 163 CPC for concealing facts.

The FIA claims that Malik did not mention himself as a government employee in his travel documents and hid his dual-nationality. However, Malik’s family believes Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was using the FIA for vested interests.

“We will adopt a legal course. Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi has already authored a detailed judgment in favour of Tariq Malik—who left the country two-months after his resignation from the post.

“But the FIA now wants to arrest him. The timing of this move is not understandable to us,” Tariq Malik’s brother Professor Tahir Malik told The Express Tribune.

His brother said the interior minister had already told parliament that a number of bureaucrats were dual-nationals but there was no constitutional restriction. “A number of government advisers are holding dual-nationalities including Adviser to the Prime Minister on Aviation Shujaat Azeem,” he added.

An official of the agency told The Express Tribune that the option to issue red-warrants against Malik was also under consideration.

The FIA had also started probing the interior ministry’s show-cause notice and the charge-sheet prepared by the audit authorities. The interior ministry, in the last week of December 2013, had issued a four-page show-cause notice, in which it had accused Malik of concealing facts, misusing official powers and financial irregularities.

According to sources, an audit team – on the wishes of National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and the interior minister – had also prepared a 14-point charge-sheet against the ex-NADRA chief.

A close aide to Malik told The Express Tribune that due to security threats from one of the ruling party’s top leaders, Malik had decided to leave Pakistan. He added that Malik was forced to quit the post of chairman NADRA and later he was threatened of dire consequences.

Malik had been sacked on the night of December 3, 2013 on charges of alleged irregularities. However, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) reinstated him the next morning and suspended his termination orders.

In his detailed verdict, Justice Qureshi of the IHC had held that government’s decision to remove Malik from his post and its charges against him were based on mala fide intention.

The chairman’s sacking had come days after an election tribunal had asked NADRA to verify the thumb impressions of voters from the Lahore constituency NA-118, won by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz candidate Malik Riaz.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 6^th, 2014.