SHC issues notice to NAB on Dr Asim’s plea to transfer case

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday issued notices to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), its special prosecutor and others on Dr Asim Hussain’s petition seeking the transfer of the watchdog’s reference pertaining to the Rs17.338 billion loss to the national exchequer, considering the NAB Ordinance being amended.

Dr Hussain said in his petition that the accountability court had dismissed his application for transferring a corruption reference pertaining to the Rs17 billion loss to the national exchequer despite the NAB Ordinance being amended.

His counsel said the trial court had failed to appreciate the amendment, whereby any advice, report or opinion given by a public office holder in the course of his duty was taken away from the accountability court unless sufficient evidence proves the person gained any monetary or other material benefit from his decision.

He said the accountability court had erred in holding that the amendment did not attract the present case for return of trial proceedings, and so such order was liable to be set aside. The court was requested to set aside the trial court’s order and stay the accountability court’s proceedings pertaining to the NAB corruption reference against the petitioner.

After the preliminary hearing of the petition, an SHC division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro issued notices to NAB’s special prosecutor and others, telling them to file their comments on March 15.

NAB had accused Dr Hussain of illegally awarding gas contracts to the privately-managed Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited to process gas from government-owned gas fields without any open auction, and caused a loss of Rs17.338 billion to the national exchequer.

Officials of the Sui Southern Gas Company and the head of the private gas company are among the co-accused in the reference that has been pending since 2016.A day earlier on Wednesday, Dr Asim was restrained by the Sindh High Court (SHC) form appointing any person in the Sindh Higher Education Commission. The high court ordered him to maintain status quo while serving as the commission’s chairman till further orders.

The interim restraining order came during the hearing of a petition of Roshan Ali Buriro who had challenged the recommendation for appointing Dr Hussain as the SHEC head for a third term.

A counsel for the petitioner submitted that despite the issuance of a status quo order with regard to a recommendation made by the universities and boards department for the third-time appointment of Dr Hussain as the SHEC chairman, the Sindh chief minister had allowed him to continue as the SHEC chairman till a regular appointment was made on the subject position.