NAB chief to appear before SC today

Karachi

The Supreme Court would take up cases pertaining to payment of cost of investigation to IOs, illegal appointments in Sindh police and the patchy service record of police personnel on Wednesday.

The chairman and provincial director general of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) are expected to attend today's hearing as they have been summoned by the court to apprise it of the number of cases pending against the Sindh police and the status of their inquiry.

The SC had on September 22, last year constituted a three-member committee, headed by Additional IG AD Khwaja, to look into the service record of all police personnel and scrutinize the record of payments made to IOs against the investigations conducted by them.

The police inquiry committee had with respect to the payment made to IOs observed that there was a lack of transparency and the records had been tempered to justify released amounts; as for the report on illegal appointments was concerned, the rules of appointment had been completely overlooked and favours were extended by police officers.

Other officials summoned by the court included the provincial chief secretary, advocate general Sindh, provincial police chief, former additional inspector general (Finance).

       

Zulfiqarbad terminal 

The provincial government was on Tuesday directed to file a reply with the Supreme Court over its failure to provide funds, meant for the Zulfiqarbad Oil Terminal, to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC).

The SC’s two member bench, headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, issued the directions while hearing a human rights application seeking the transfer of the oil terminal from the residential Shireen Jinnah Colony to the city’s outskirts.

According to a report filed by the city commissioner around Rs860 million were to be released for the second phase of the oil terminal.

He maintained that as per a previous arrangement, a certain amount of funds were to be paid by the Sindh government which it did, however, the remaining stakeholders did not. The commissioner, hence, requested the court to ask the provincial government to pay the remaining grant of Rs430 million to complete the second phase of the project. 

The court after observing that the matter had been pending in the court for a long time directed for it to be resolved at once and directed the advocate-general to discuss the matter with all the stakeholders and submit a report with the court at the next session.