Daily Times

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has not only apprehended untouchables and big fish for the first time in its history but also recovered Rs 538.835 billion from them, said Chairman Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal.

Chairing a meeting to review overall performance of anti graft watchdog, he said that NAB has brought the untouchables and big fish to justice during the tenure of the present management of NAB from Oct 2017 to August 31, 2021.

NAB was vigorously pursuing its cases in the learned Courts on the basis of solid documentary evidence as per law and its overall conviction ratio was about 66 percent.

He said that NAB would not come under any pressure and criticism and would continue to perform its national duties in order to eradicate corruption and corrupt practices.

He said that NAB was determined for logical conclusion of mega corruption cases of money laundering, fake accounts, misuse of authority, assets beyond known sources of Income, cheating public at large, housing societies and Modarba by utilizing all its resources as per law.

He said that out of 179 mega corruption cases of NAB, 66 mega corruption cases had been brought to logical conclusion while 93 mega corruption cases were under trial in the learned Accountability Courts of the country.

NAB has decided to file requests for early hearings of the under trial cases in the learned Accountability Courts as per clause 16 (a) of NAB Ordinance, 1999, he added.

He said that NAB had received 496,460 complaints since its inception, out of which 487,124 complaints were disposed of. NAB has authorized 16,093 complaint verification (CVs), while 15,378 complaint verification were completed. NAB has authorized 10,241 inquiries, out of which 9,275 inquiries had been completed. NAB has authorized 4,654 investigations, out of which 4,358 Investigations had been completed by NAB since its inception.

NAB has recovered Rs819 billion directly and indirectly since its inception.

NAB had filed 3,754 references in various Learned Accountability Courts, out of which 2,477 references were decided by Learned Accountability Courts. Currently, 1,274 references having worth of Rs1335.019 billion were under trial at various accountability courts.

He said that corruption breeds injustice, poverty, undermines social, economic development of societies and affects the countries around the world.

NAB has introduced a new concept of combine investigation team (CIT) in order to benefit from the experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers in order to further improve the standard and quality of inquiries and investigations on the basis of solid evidence as well as statements of witnesses and documentary evidence besides establishing state of the art forensic science lab which has facilities of digital forensics, questioned documents and fingerprint analysis. In line with NAB’s enforcement strategy, NAB under the dynamic leadership of Justice Javed Iqbal, has itself prescribed a timeframe for completion of investigations and subsequently filing of references on the allegations of corruption and corrupt practices. NAB has also established witness handling cells in all its regional bureaus.