Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that it was opposed to the power granted to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman under the existing law to release an accused following voluntary return of ill-gotten money.

Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) Ashtar Ausaf Ali told the three-member Supreme Court bench, headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmad, that Section 25 (a) of the National Accountability Ordinance of 1999 empowered the NAB chairman to accept the offer of voluntary return.

The SC bench was hearing a suo motu notice over voluntary return scheme in NAB cases.

The AGP submitted that he had proposed the government to make voluntary return subject to approval by the court. An amendment bill regarding this proposal was pending considering in the Senate, he said.

He said the unlimited powers granted to the NAB Chairman were not appropriate as there should be a proper mechanism for the purpose. He told the court that he had also proposed that those who make voluntary return should be disqualified for a period of five years from holding any public office or running for elections. If the accused were public servants, they should be dismissed from the office immediately, he said.

After hearing the AGP, the court asked him to submit his written reply in the matter and also directed the Advocate General of Islamabad and Advocates General of all provinces to submit their respective replies by November 4.

During the hearing, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed observed that the outcomes of the plea bargain and the voluntary return were characteristically different. He said voluntary return of money was actually a confession of the crime. However, the accountability laws relating to it changed its nature from a crime to a case of good intentions.

He said after the beginning of the inquiry into corruption cases, the practice at the NAB was to ask the accused to return ill-earned money through a scheme allowing them to continue earning illegally and returning the money earned to the anti-graft body.

He observed that the court could not keep its eyes shut on the matter. The duplicity in the NAB law can be judged from the fact that the Bureau maintains that a case concerning Rs75 million is a minor one, and yet it imprisons convicts in a case involving Rs100,000.

The court adjourned hearing of the case till November 9.

Published in Daily Times, October 12^th 2017.