NAB told to conclude probe in two months

SC also wants investigations into illegal police appointments to be completed before deadline ends

Karachi

The Supreme Court directed the National Accountability Bureau on Wednesday to conclude within two months an inquiry into the alleged misappropriation of investigation funds and illegal appointments in the Sindh police department.

Hearing cases pertaining to the alleged payments from the funds to investigation officers and illegal appointments in the police department, a three-member bench headed by Justice Mian Saqib Nisar observed that the NAB authorities would be free to benefit from the material collected by an inquiry committee to conclude the probe.

NAB’s deputy prosecutor general, Syed Amjad Ali Shah, filed an interim report and submitted that the inquiry into the allegations would be completed soon. 

Former Sindh inspector general of police Ghulam Haider Jamali’s counsel, Asma Jahangir, said the inquiry should not be conducted through police officers. She noted that NAB was conducting the investigation in light of inquiry committee reports and pursuant of court orders.  She questioned the nomination of IGP AD Khowaja as a member of the inquiry committee.

The bench clarified that NAB had commenced the investigation independent of any court order. It observed that Khowaja’s name was included on the recommendation of then advocate general, and the IGP had disassociated himself from the committee dealing with police officers and personnel having a patchy service record. 

The apex court has appointed AIG Sanaullah Abbasi as head of the inquiry committee and included DIG Naeem Sheikh as member.

The three-member committee headed by Khowaja had levelled serious allegations against Jamali and other senior police officers, accusing them of making disproportionate allocations of funds. It further alleged discrepancies in the record of the central police, including overwriting, fidgeting and non-availability of approval of the competent authority.

The committee alleged that investigation funds were distributed in a non-transparent manner and in violation of financial rules on extract bills over and above the fixed ceilings. It added that the investigation amount was spent on cases investigated over the last five years and the entire exercise appeared non-transparent and smacked of corruption. 

The committee, in its interim report on the recruitment of 437 personnel, including 19 junior clerks in the Sindh Reserve Police, Hyderabad, held the appointments as illegal.

The court had also ordered departmental proceedings against ex-IGP Jamali, former additional IG Fida Hussain and other high- ranking officers in cases pertaining to the payment of expenses to investigation officers and illegal appointments in the police department. 

Jamali, however, refuted the allegations and submitted that police recruitments in the year 2013-2014 were tainted with illegalities and corruption in which members of the committee, who had submitted the aforesaid reports, were involved and they had attempted to falsely implicate him in order to protect themselves.

On September 22 last year, the SC had constituted the three-member committee to screen patchy service records of police personnel and officers of the province and scrutinise all records regarding the payment of investigation costs. 

On December 23, the committee was also given task to conduct an inquiry into the alleged illegal appointments.

The committee mentioned in its report that the allocation of investigation funds lacked transparency, rationally and justification, and the allocation of funds in pre-budget demands, budgetary allocations, allocation of funds from the IG police reserve funds, revised estimates and re-appropriation of funds were neither transparently issued nor properly utilised.