Govt working to improve new graft law, SHC told

The Sindh government is revisiting and working on the province's new anti-graft law to provide an effective accountability mechanism that would also be in line with the federal accountability and anti-corruption laws, the province's advocate general informed the Sindh High Court on Monday.

The court was hearing identical petitions filed by provincial opposition parties – the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional – against the Pakistan Peoples Party’s controversial law to repeal the National Accountability Ordinance.

Sindh AG Zamir Ghumro maintained that the provincial government wanted to revisit the NAO repeal law and examine the provincial anti-corruption laws to form an effective accountability law in the province.

He said he was under instruction from the provincial chief minster to inform the court about revisiting of the repeal law, and sought time to file comments after receiving a response from the provincial government. An SHC’s full bench headed by Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M Sheikh granted time to the Sindh AG and adjourned the hearing till October 9.

It is pertinent to mention that the SHC on its August 16 interim order had allowed the National Accountability Bureau to proceed with ongoing inquiries and investigations, the accountability courts were also asked to continue with the proceedings of references fixed before them.

MQM-P chief Farooq Sattar and PML-F leader Shahryar Khan Mahar, Pasban and others had submitted in their petitions that the PPP government in order to stall NAB’s probes in several corruption inquiries and investigations against government bureaucrats and politicians introduced the repeal bill in the provincial assembly.

They observed that the NAO repeal bill was unlawfully passed without any discussion or debate in the assembly. The petitioners further maintained that the Sindh Governor had expressed reservations over the controversial bill and had returned it back to the assembly for reconsideration but the PPP lawmakers presented the same unconstitutional bill without any amendments and had it passed from the House again.

The impugned law cannot override the provisions of Article 142 and 143 of the Constitution and the Sindh Accountability Act cannot have any bearing on the operation of NAB Ordinance, 1999, the petitioners further maintained.

Counsels for the petitioner, Farogh Naseem and Faisal Siddiqui, submitted that the impugned law was creating hurdles in NAB’s functioning and the provincial government was restraining its departments from cooperating with the anti-graft watchdog.  NAB’s prosecutor general Waqas Dar also submitted before the court that prosecution in NAB’s cases was also being affected because of the provincial government’s law.