Friday, October 26, 2018

Business Recorder Editorial Oct 26, 2018

Increasingly controversial NAB

Disquiet is growing against the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB’s) shenanigans. This has by now reached the highest judicial forum, the Supreme Court (SC). A three-member bench of the SC has asked why NAB is becoming ‘politicised’, practicing ‘double standards’, indulging in discriminatory conduct in different cases, and resorting at the drop of a hat to plea bargains even in cases that do not merit it. Justice Qazi Faez Isa remarked during the hearing of a bail application of a section officer of the Sindh information Department why NAB’s policy in investigating corruption cases is not uniform, as in some cases it is putting in all its efforts but in some other cases not doing enough. Justice Isa noted that billions of rupees were recovered from the residence of Mushtaq Ahmed Raisani, the then finance secretary Balochistan, but NAB struck a plea bargain deal with him and in fact managed to get him bail from the trial court despite the SC having denied him bail two months earlier. Justice Isa went on to argue that NAB should set a uniform principle for dealing with corruption cases instead of dealing with every case according to its discretion. Head of the bench Justice Gulzar Ahmed said NAB had shown no performance except allowing plea bargains to accused persons. The honourable Justice asked a senior NAB official to point out any case in which it had actually recovered any amount. Justice Gulzar pointed out that billions of rupees had been spent on NAB but nobody knew the fate of corruption cases. NAB, Justice Gulzar concluded, is only creating anguish and misery for everyone. In the instant case being heard, the NAB Additional Prosecutor General could not name the prosecutor except to say he was from Karachi. This case is not the first time the SC has taken umbrage at NAB’s conduct. Last month, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar noted NAB was creating lacunae in cases, which resulted in acquittal of the accused. The CJP had also expressed anger at the misbehaviour of NAB investigation officers during interrogation of the accused.

The SC has echoed the criticism being heaped on NAB’s head from more than one direction, as well as from the public. Actually, it needs perhaps to be remembered that NAB was set up by former military dictator Pervez Musharraf, essentially to ‘nab’ politicians. Musharraf may be long gone, but his creature still stalks the land. The criticisms highlighted by the SC regarding the arbitrariness of approach, discriminatory treatment in similar cases, presumption of guilt of the accused (which flies in the face of the old established jurisprudential principle of ‘innocent until proved guilty’), mistreatment of the accused (e.g. presenting those arrested before the media, parading retired professors and the former Vice Chancellor of Punjab University in handcuffs), and NAB’s penchant for striking plea bargain deals at its discretion have been around for quite some time. However, they seem to be getting worse, given the climate attending the PTI government’s anti-corruption crusade. Criticism has also been levelled at the chairman NAB’s seemingly unchecked discretionary powers, in the light of which any deviation from the norm of conducting corruption investigations leads to charges of a political witch-hunt. The need therefore presents itself logically of reframing NAB’s mandate in a manner that eliminates arbitrariness, restores due process and the rights of the accused enshrined in our laws and constitution, and creates a mechanism to provide checks on the chairman’s and NAB’s discretion. It is in the interests of the government for NAB not only to be carrying out but being seen to be carrying out its mandate in a transparent, regulated by law manner. Otherwise the charges of political motivation behind many of NAB’s actions may eventually rebound on the government itself, making it harder for it to maintain its professed impartiality in the anti-corruption campaign.

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