Ex-Punjab bureaucrat moves LHC against NAB

LAHORE: A senior retired bureaucrat has approached the Lahore High Court challenging functioning, framework and proceedings initiated by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and call up notices issued to him in an inquiry against the officials of Punjab Entertainment Company (PEC). Petitioner Taimur Azmat Osman, a retired BS-22 officer, had also served as acting managing director as an ex-officio managing director of the PEC appointed by its board in 2005.

The former bureaucrat through Advocate Khurram Chughtai pleads that the NAB had issued him three call-up notices each in 2019, 2020 and 2021 despite submission of detailed replies. He states that the allegations levelled against him in the notices are without any lawful justification, as he had always discharged his duties in pursuance of the decisions of government and the PEC board.

The counsel argues that despite the three call-up notices, the NAB had neither raised any query, nor conveyed any objection with regard to the exchange in question to the petitioner as he had also been interrogated personally. He states that the NAB had neither objected to nor expressed any dissatisfaction over the replies submitted by the petitioner or pointed out any discrepancy or lacuna in them.

He asks the court to set aside the impugned call-up notices and also declare that the functioning, framework and proceedings initiated by the NAB amount to transgressing constitutional mandate and legal framework of Auditor General of Pakistan and Public Accounts Committees. A division bench comprising Justice Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi and Justice Sardar Ahmad Naeem would take up the petition on Monday (tomorrow).