LHC declines to fix petition challenging NAB Ord

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC)’s Registrar Office on Monday declined to fix a petition challenging the recently-promulgated NAB Amendment Ordinance 2019 during winter vacation. The office returned the petition to Advocate Ishtiaq A Chaudhry who will now file the same after January 8, 2020. During vacation, the court entertains urgent cases only including stay matters and bail petitions. In his petition, the lawyer submitted that the NAB had been chained by joining hands with parliamentarians, the civil administration and the business community. He argued that Article 25(1) of the Constitution declared that all citizens are equal before the law and they are entitled to equal protection of law. He said the special facilitation given to suspects of the NAB whereby powers to arrest and investigate have been interfered and a new plea-bargain before investigation is highly discriminatory. The lawyer pleaded that Article 5 of the Constitution spoke of loyalty to the state and the recent amendments introduced in the NAO are likely to make a public office holder as corrupt and disloyal to the state. He pointed out that the amendments omitted Section 14 of the ordinance, which is a hallmark of the whole accountability law and required an accused to prove his assets beyond means and all corrupt practices. The petitioner-lawyer asked the court to declare that the amendments introduced by insertion of Section 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 through NAB (Amendment) Ordinance 2019 are ultra vires to Constitution.