PHC restrains NAB from Voluntary Return cancellation

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday restrained the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from Voluntary Return cancellation and any adverse action against an official of the Revenue Department till the next order of the court.

The official had claimed that the NAB KP director general was going to cancel his Voluntary Return after Supreme Court restrained NAB chairman from Voluntary Return. A two-member bench comprising Justice Syed Afsar Shah and Justice Roohul Amin Khan passed the restraining order to the NAB not to cancel the Voluntary Return (VR) of the government official till the next order of the court.

It is pertinent to mention that the Supreme Court on October 24 restrained the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry from approving deals for voluntary return (VR), a provision under the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999, that allows people guilty of corruption to pay a certain portion of the embezzled money and be released without any stigma. The NAB scheme even allows federal and provincial government servants to resume work in their departments after availing the NAB’s VR facility. However, after the SC restraining order, it was stated that the NAB KP head had also prepared a list of 330 officials who had entered into VR with NAB in the province for cancelation of the VR.

Bakht Yar Khan, tehsildar in Peshawar had filed the writ petition, requesting the high court to issue an order to the NAB to delete his name from the list of those officials who had entered into VR with the NAB. He feared that the bureau wanted to cancel the VRs.

During hearing into the case, Danial Asad Chamkani, counsel for the tehsildar, submitted before the bench that the NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa director general had prepared a list of officials who entered into VR with the NAB for cancellation in light of the orders of Supreme Court.