Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has constituted a three-member bench led by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali to hear the matter on December 19. The Chief Justice has taken notice regarding the PM's son-in-law's appointment as ED World Bank over the reports carried by various newspapers.
The court has also fixed his previous case of appointment, in which PM's son-in-law was promoted from Grade-18 to BPS-20 in Employees Old-age Benefit Institution. It has been learnt that Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan had appeared on his behalf in that case in March 2012. He later requested the court to adjourn this case because he was busy in the contempt of court case of the then Prime Minister, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani. The bench had accepted his plea and adjourned the case for an indefinite period. After that adjournment, the court now has fixed the case for December 19.
It is worth mentioning that a few years back the PM's son-in-law was serving in grade-18 in the Income Tax Group, but was first hired by Employees Old-age Benefit Institution in BPS-20 and soon after his father-in-law's elevation to the post of PM, he too was elevated in the PM Secretariat to a grade-21 post. Now the PM has designated his son-in-law Raja Azeemul Haq as the executive director of the World Bank to replace the outgoing ED Javed Talat, who was working on this slot on extension.
The post is highly lucrative, offering a $220,000 per annum salary along with other perks and privileges while the salary of alternate ED is 85 percent of the salary drawn by ED along with same perks and privileges. The post of ED is considered crucial as he represents seven countries on the World Bank's executive board where multi-billion dollar projects are approved annually. Pakistan's nominated ED represents Afghanistan, Iran, Algeria, Morocco, Ghana, Tunisia and Pakistan.
The post of executive director and alternate ED rotates between Pakistan and Algeria every two years and recently Algeria's ED was elected for the next two years and their ED had assumed charge on November 1, 2012. The three-year tenure of outgoing ED Javed Talat expired last year but he was given a one-year extension, which also expired a few months ago. However, he was directed to continue working on this slot till further orders.