Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice has demanded amendment in the clauses regarding voluntary return (VR) and plea bargain (PB) of NAB Ordinance 1999, as it is projecting corruption in the country.

The Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice met on Monday under the chairmanship of Senator Javed Abbasi. Senator Farhatullah Babar of Pakistan People’s Party raised the issue that under section 25 of NAB that deals with voluntary return and plea bargain was against the department’s mandate. “The basic function of National Accountability Bureau is to stop corruption but instead it is projecting corruption. Former Balochistan finance secretary Mushtaq Raisani who was involved in a corruption scam paid Rs 2 billion through plea bargain to NAB. The NAB chairman has excess powers and he could take the final decision for determining the amount for the plea bargain,” he said.

The chair of the panel said that the NAB ordinance was brought by dictators, which is being used as a pressurizing tactic so far. NAB Deputy Chairman Imtiaz Tajwar said that NAB had given VR and PB options to the accused, adding that Raisani, as provincial secretary, allocated Rs 6 billion for just two union councils of the province but out of them, only Rs 3.1 billion were released. He said that NAB recovered Rs 3.5 billion in assets and cash from Raisani and his cohorts, including 11 bungalows that were located at Defence, Karachi.

NAB Director General Zahir Shah informed the committee that NAB transfers recovered the amount and assets to the respective federal or provincial departments. He said that initially VR and PB law was not for governmental officials as it was only meant for loan defaulters. But on the court’s order, government officials were also included in the clause. He said the majority of the amount was recovered from IPPs last year.

Former Senate chairman Senator Farooq H Naik has said that as a matter of fact, former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf was not convicted as NAB recovered the entire amount from the IPPs. He concluded by saying, “We want legal justice, not public justice in this country.”

Senator Aitzaz Ahsan raised the question that has NAB investigated the matter regarding the transfer of illegal money to Hassan Nawaz, son of Nawaz Sharif. Federal Minister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid blamed Ahsan for deteriorating the atmosphere of the panel for getting attention of the media.

“We can also talk regarding the cases of corruption of other people here,” Hamid added by saying that the joint committee consisting members from Senate and National Assembly for reforms in NAB law would soon be announced. The committee has given one month to the sub-committee under the convenorship of Farooq Naik for the completion the report on violation of rules and regulations in the appointments of officers in

The committee also discussed the bill, which was moved by PPP’s Senator Sassi Palijo and Aajiz Dhamrah for giving the status of national language to Sindhi, Punjabi, Balochi and Pashtoo along with Urdu. Palijo was of the view that around 20 languages have the status of national languages in India.

Dhamrah demanded that Senator Karim Khawaja’s bill for including more languages as national languages should also be brought together with this bill. He said that this would finish the deprivation of smaller provinces.

Senator Naik supported the bill and said that if one wanted to unify Pakistan, then they should give provincial languages the status of national languages. Senator Ahsan suggested that along with these four provincial languages, Saraiki should also be included into the list.

The law minister said that the parliament had already rejected similar kinds of bills which were moved by late senator Haji Adeel and Marvi Memon in the past. Adviser to Prime Minister on Law and Justice Barrister Zafar Ullah Khan said that Urdu was the national language and the provinces had their own official languages. He said that Saraiki language might be included in national languages.