‘Cheating public at large’

ISLAMABAD: The Shehbaz Sharif government believes that the NAB recoveries of hundreds of billions and its much-trumpeted conviction rate of 70% are flawed and a complete deceit.

A key government aide while referring to the recoveries claimed by the NAB and its former chairman told The News Tuesday that the government had looked into the matter and a mere cursory study of the Bureau’s annual reports revealed that the recoveries number was padded up with two creative components: bank recoveries and handover of plots to allottees.

In the first, it was explained, all recoveries due to improved banking laws, efficient disposal of cases by banking courts and positive economic conditions had been attributed to the NAB. “This, being a deceptive practice, would qualify as 'cheating public at large' by the bureau’s own standards,” a government source said.

In the second, he added, all delayed projects despite having underlying property had been “recovered” at the prevailing market prices. The official source said that although the NAB had never been audited, its direct recoveries did not even cover the amount the bureau had spent on buildings and staff salaries so far.

The source said that another much touted number was the conviction rate of 70%. Here again, it was said, the reality was different. The NAB had applied two tricks to gloss this statistic: It did not adjust convictions overturned by superior courts, and it counted plea bargains as convictions.

It was said that after going through various High Court and Supreme Court judgments, there was a distinct impression that the institutional and legal design of the NAB had incentivised seeking a resolution (plea bargain, confession).

The alternate was jail for a lengthy period of time at a loss of mental and economic well-being while the case was legally fought out. Referring to the recent amendments made to the NAB law, the source said that the 90-day physical remand and non-applicability of the bail which had been done away with were really the crude tools that the Bureau had used indiscriminately to extract statements under duress.

The source said that while the NAB regularly sought relaxations from the court for failing to meet basic standards of criminal prosecution owing to the “peculiar nature of white collar crime”, it was perhaps the only agency in democratic nations to employ such tactics on those alleged to be involved in such crimes.

“Thus for any sensible person, especially if innocent, entering into a plea bargain is a simple math when informed by investigators that the alternate would be to spend at least a year in jail, face social ridicule and millions of rupees in legal fees,” the source said.

The source explained that those who had experienced the NAB detention had reported that the actual period of investigation during their time was minimal, and the entire focus was on torturing the accused and humiliating their family to get them ready for a plea bargain.

“Those arrested in 2018 narrate their horror stories of how the incumbent Lahore DG ordered washrooms within cells to be dismantled so that detainees would have to grovel each time they needed to relieve themselves,” the government source said, adding, “A surveillance camera was added to the single washroom available to serve the three dozen or so interns in an effort to further the psy-ops agenda of the Bureau.”

“Most detainees from that period also report either being beaten in custody or having seen someone getting beaten,” the source said. “Compare this to the hard work of gathering solid evidence,” he said, it is kind of obvious why the NAB had so vociferously defended its excessive custodial powers.

The source said that the recent changes in the NAB law were simply structuring the power of arrest in line with judicial wisdom to prevent the blatant misuse of power that the crime watchdog was often accused of.

Like any fair criminal justice system, Pakistan’s CrPC too requires the prosecution agency to prove its case through evidence and then freeze the case, so that the accused can defend against the allegations.

The NAB, on the other hand, nurtured on having limitless time to conclude cases, had a regular practice of submitting supplementary references which targeted any holes created by the defence in the prosecution story.

Justifying another amendment, the government source said under the international law, an investigation agency had to provide evidence of transfer of monetary benefit to the person(s) in power from a beneficiary granted concession to prove corruption.

Simply accusing someone of misusing authority without any financial gain, and then having them prove their innocence had really been NAB’s superpower all along. “The new amendments do away with both misuse of authority without financial gain and the 'guilty until proven' model of the NAB.”

The new amendments, it was explained, also provided for punishment of the NAB officials if it was established that the NAB acted in a malicious way against the accused.

“Given the steady stream of allegations against the NAB, this amendment finally creates some deterrence against abuse of power but at the same time protects its officers from a hanging sword by restricting such action only if accused is acquitted and the court concludes that the Bureau acted in a malicious way,” the source said.

A NAB spokesman, when approached for the Bureau’s response about government’s perception about the bureau, simply shared the relevant section of the new law under which its officials were barred from making any public statement.