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  • Nov 27th, 2013
  • Comments Off on NAB decides to proceed against its own chairman
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday decided to proceed against its own chief Qamar Zaman Chaudhry and other accused in the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam case. Following the Supreme Court decision on the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam case, acting chairman NAB Saeed Ahmad Sargana constituted a joint probe committee headed by Director General (DG) operations Zahir Shah to investigate the case.

The committee would also include representatives of the police and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), sources said. Sources said the committee would proceed against NAB chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, former commerce minister Amin Fahim, former tax ombudsman Abdul Rauf Chaudhry, Nargis Sethi, Khushnood Lashari, Salman Ghani, former DG Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Malik Muhammad Iqbal and ex-secretary establishment Ismail Qureshi.

According to the NAB spokesman, the bureau received a certified copy of SC judgment on NICL case at 4.00pm on November 25, 2013. A notification appointing Deputy Chairman NAB Saeed Ahmad Sargana as acting Chairman NAB during the absence of Chairman NAB Qamar Zaman Chaudhry had not yet been received. However, since the Chairman before proceeding on leave had authorised Deputy Chairman to act on his behalf, the Deputy Chairman had decided to exercise his powers without further delay to proceed on Supreme Court judgment.

While proceeding on leave, Chairman NAB issued only one instruction to the Dy Chairman: he authorised his deputy to act as Chairman. The instruction was that the Dy Chairman would exercise his powers as fairly and transparently as possible, particularly while investigating the cases which involved the Chairman himself.

Consequently, in the interest of justice, the Acting Chairman decided that, instead of the senior most DG of NAB, the person selected to oversee the inquiry should, not only be competent and experienced, but should have had no opportunity of interaction with the Chairman prior to his appointment in NAB. He has, therefore, assigned this task to Zahir Shah, DG (Operations) NAB headquarters, to oversee the two inquiries which involve the Chairman NAB, which will be conducted by a Joint Investigation Team (JIT). The JIT will include an Investigation Officer of NAB who will be assisted by a highly competent Police Officer and another member from the SECP.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2013


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