THE sudden chan­ges to the accountability laws through an ordinance promulgated by the acting president may become a problem for the PTI, but they are likely to provide relief to the Sharif family facing graft cases.

The presidential ordinance, pro­mulgated on Monday night, am­en­d­­ed six sections of the Natio­nal Ac­­countability Ordina­nce (NAO), the law that governs NAB, and also res­tores powers of the bureau’s head.

Interestingly, the amendments introduced through the presidential ordinance in Section 14-A — about “presumption against accused accepting illegal gratification” — are no different from the ones repealed through the ordinance. Likewise, Section 26 which relates to the powers of the NAB chairman to “tender of pardon” also remained similar to the section which was replaced through the newly promulgated ordinance.

The amendments restored the powers of the NAB chairman clipped through an earlier act of parliament passed by the ruling coalition, which is pending before the Supreme Court.

Amendments likely to ‘benefit Sharifs, create trouble for Imran’

For example, through the previous year’s amendment in Section 24 of the National Accountability Ordinance, the chairman was barred to issue arrest warrants during the inquiry stage and the remand period was reduced from 90 days to a fortnight.

However, the recent ordinance empowered the NAB chairman to “issue warrant of arrest during the course of inquiry if the accused is not joining inquiry despite notices or wilfully does not cooperate in such inquiry”.

It may be mentioned here that as per NAB’s procedure, after verification of a complaint, an inquiry is authorised by the competent au­­thority which takes at least three months to mature into an investigation.

This means that if an inquiry is authorised today, the chairman cannot issue arrest warrants until it is converted or upgraded into an investigation. However, the amend­­ment has now empowered him to order the arrest of suspects at the stage of inquiry.

The NAB has repeatedly argued before the accountability court and the Islamabad High Court that PTI chief Imran Khan was ignoring the call-up notices on one pretext or another. Hence, legal experts be­­l­i­eve that through these amendm­ents, Mr Khan or someone against whom an inquiry is initiated in any case could be arrested anytime.

Kashif Ali Malik, an advocate of the Supreme Court, said that the ordinance revived the powers of NAB. He warned that this law may be used against PTI for the time being, but it could be used against PML-N or any political party in future.

Speaking about the increase in the remand period, criminal law expert Raja Inam Ameen Minhas said that 14-day remand in white-collar crimes was a sufficient period. He added there was no need of detaining a suspect for a month. The white-collar crimes are probed to get hold of certain documents which could be recovered within a fortnight, he opined.

He said that since this provision was directly related to the liberty and freedom of a citizen, this should not be inserted into the law through “temporary legislation”.

The government, on the other hand, is defending these amendments. Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Legal Reforms and Accountability Irfan Qadir said that the 90 days remand was not rational, therefore, the period was reduced to 14 days.

He said that a fortnight was not enough to interrogate and gather evidence and the investigation agency was facing some issues in this regard so the remand period was ‘slightly increased’ to 30 days.

He, however, said that the prosecution was required to produce the accused before the judge to ob­­tain remand and it was the judge who decides on the remand period.

The ordinance, besides amending other sections, also inserted a proviso in Section 36. It states, “If the accused has been acquitted by the court on the ground that the case was initiated with mala fide intention based on fabricated evidence, the person found guilty of such [an] act by the said court shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine.”

Though the NAO provided blanket cover to the officials of the government as well as of the prosecution agency, investigators could face ramifications in case of adver­­se observations by a court of law.

Though the law is prospective, legal experts are of the view that the amendment may soothe the Sharif family as former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is yet to seek acquittal in Avenfield and Al-Azizia references.

In the Avenfield reference filed by NAB, the IHC had ruled that the prosecution failed to prove charges against Maryam Nawaz and her husband Capt Safdar and there was no evidence on record to prove Nawaz Sharif purchased apartments in his daughter’s name through corrupt, illegal practices.

According to Advocate Malik, if Nawaz Sharif is acquitted and the IHC “passes some adverse observations against NAB, then the investigation officers of NAB would face consequences”. Mr Qadir is of the view that the law is for everyone and it will keep a check on “unfair practices”.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2023