ISLAMABAD: Following the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s verdict in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) law amendments case, around 2,000 graft cases involving prominent politicians are expected to be restored.
A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Umar Bandial struck down some amendments made to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999 by the previous coalition government.
After the apex court ruling, a number of cases are expected to be restored, including those against former president Asif Ali Zardari, six former prime ministers — Nawaz Sharif, Shaukat Aziz, Yousuf Raza Gillani, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Shehbaz Sharif — and former finance minister Ishaq Dar.
The Toshakhana references against Zardari, Nawaz and Gillani will be reopened. The LNG reference against Abbasi and the rental power reference against Ashraf will also be restored. All these references had been transferred from the accountability court after the amendments in NAB laws.
Prominent politicians who allegedly benefited from the amendments and now may face cases again include Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Faryal Talpur, Khawaja Asif, Khawaja Saad Rafique, Rana Sanaullah, Javed Latif, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, Amir Mehmood Kayani, Akram Durrani, and Saleem Mandviwalla.
Of the 2000 cases restored, 755 cases were returned at the inquiry stage and 292 at the investigation stage. Around 510 cases were of less than Rs500 million and 168 cases pertained to assets beyond known source of income. Similarly, 213 cases stand restored as per Section 9A, while 89 cases are related to fraud.
The NAB is still awaiting the detailed judgment and its prosecution branch is busy compiling the data which would be submitted to the chairman after compilation.
NAB Balochistan has sought approval from NAB headquarters for the closing of an inquiry against Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar due to a lack of evidence a few months back.
The Supreme Court ordered to restoration of corruption cases against public representatives as it struck down some sections of the amendments made to the accountability laws.
The 2-1 verdict was issued with Justice Bandial and Justice Ahsan declaring the plea to be maintainable. Justice Shah issued a dissenting note arguing that parliament could amend or appeal NAB laws.
The 55-page detailed judgement restored all inquiries, investigations and references that were disposed of based on the now struck-down sections of NAO to their positions before the amendments, and thus deemed to be pending before relevant forums.
