Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Federal Ombudsman Sulman Farooqi has summoned Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to explain his position on an application which states that he has failed to redress the grievance of the applicant.

The confrontation between two state functionaries was triggered following the disqualification of a close relative of federal ombudsman by the Chairman NAB, who passed an order on the summary moved by the Sindh NAB investigation officer.

Federal Ombudsman issued explanation notices to Chairman NAB Chaudhry Qamar Zaman and additional director NAB Zahid Sheikh. He directed them to appear before his court on August 11, 2016 in Federal Ombudsman Headquarters Islamabad.

It is very interesting move that the federal ombudsman secretariat is being run by those retired officers who are wanted to NAB in various corruption scams that were appeared in previous PPP regime.

The Daily Times got the documents, which revealed that the hearing of the case would be commenced in the office of Federal Ombudsman at 11.00 am and accountability of Chairman would be conducted by Sulman Farooqi whose close relative had been disqualified by Qamar Zaman Chaudhary.

It is not explained in the documents either the general public would be allowed to observe the hearing or it would be held in camera.

The documents also showed that Federal Ombudsman Sulman Farooqi had issued notice to Chairman NAB on the application of Khalid Rashid who has alleged maladministration and failure of NAB for redressing his grievance.

Applicant Khalid Rashid was expelled from the army on the charges of tampering secret official record and later on he tried to blackmail the administration of Behria Town, of which the video has also been surfaced.

A tug of war between two organs of the state has now started and now the nation would like to see the conclusion of this war which is being fought on hoarse course of the justice and law and the main reason of this war is disqualification of a close relative of Farooqi, who is believed to be a close aide of former president Asif Zardari.

It is also pertinent to mention here that when the mega corruption scams of PPP regime came to surface the incumbent ombudsman Sulman Farooqi was Principal Secretary to then President Asif Zardari.

It is also pertinent to mention here that another close relative of Sulman Farooqi also remained in jail in corruption reference filed by NAB.

It has also been recalled that in the past a High Court Judge Justice Manzoor Ali has declared in his illustrious judgment passed that no state organs except Supreme Court of Pakistan could interfere in the criminal proceeding of NAB against any criminal but federal ombudsman and his subordinates are looking to oversee this court order while issuing notices to NAB, the source told.

The Federal Ombudsman has directed Chairman NAB to appear before his court or depute any officer with the complete record of instant case. Federal Ombudsman also threatened that the case would be decided ex parte on the basis of available documents and competent authority would be asked to take disciplinary action against the concerned officer as specified in clause 1 of article 14 of POI of 1983 and sub regulation 5 of regulation 15 of Wafaqi Mohtasib (investigation and disposal of complains 2013.