Irked by slow progress, SC gives NAB 10 days to submit report

Court remarks that NAB chief seems more interested in travelling instead of performing duties

Karachi

The Supreme Court on Tuesday took exception over the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) delay in submitting a progress report on proceedings against the former provincial inspector general and other senior officers pertaining to a lack of transparency in payment of investigation costs to police officers.

Hearing an application pertaining to alleged corruption in investigation funds, the three-member SC bench headed by Justice Amir Hani Muslim asked the NAB prosecutor general to explain why the necessary action under the NAB Ordinance was not initiated despite the inquiry against former Sindh IGP Ghulam Hyder Jamali and other senior police officers having been completed two and a half months ago.

In reply, NAB Prosecutor General Waqas Qadeer Dar submitted that the inquiry against the former IGP and other officers had been completed, but the matter could not be finalised because the NAB board of directors meeting was put off as NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry was abroad for a conference.

To this, the court replied that “it seems the NAB chairman is more interested in travelling abroad instead of performing his duties”.

Dar told the bench that some of the officials involved in misappropriation of funds have voluntarily offered to return the embezzled money, but the court shot down the idea and observed that corrupt people should not be afforded a chance to save their skin through voluntarily return schemes.   

The bench directed the NAB prosecutor general to submit a progress report within 10 days, stating that if further delay occurred, the NAB chief would be summoned to explain the reason in person.

Sindh Advocate General Zamir Hussain Ghumro submitted that the secretary services had sent a letter to the secretary establishment for taking disciplinary action against ex-IGP Jamali and seven others police officers in a matter relating to illegal appointments in the Sindh police force.

The court observed that material against the police officers, including the charges, be provided to the competent authority for disciplinary action and adjourned the hearing till next month.

The names included in the the Sindh government’s letter to the establishment secretary were Ghulam Hyder Jamali, former DIG Shahab Mazhar Bhalli, former Additional IG Aitezaz Ahmed Goraya, and other PSP officers Syed Fida Hussain Shah, Ghulam Azfar Mahesar, Amjad Ahmed Sheikh, Umer Tufail and Khalid Mustafa Koari. 

It is pertinent to mention that the SC had, on March 11, directed NAB to submit a progress report with regards to the inquiry and investigation being conducted against former IGP Sindh and others in illegal appointments and corruption in payment of cost of investigation to IOs.

The directions had come in light of the findings presented by a three-member fact-finding committee headed by A D Khowaja that was constituted to inquire into the matter. The committee had leveled serious allegations against Jamali and the other officers, including allegations 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.

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

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

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