ISLAMABAD: Former interior minister Rehman Malik may face a fresh investigation by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for illegally issuing diplomatic passports during the last PPP government.

The formal investigation would be authorised by the executive board of NAB at a meeting likely to be held on Monday, an inside source told Dawn on Sunday.

The former interior minister and his team are accused of issuing more than 2,000 blue passports to unauthorised people in violation of rules. They are also accused of earning billions of rupees by creating artificial delay in issuance of ordinary and urgent passports.

When contacted, the NAB spokesman neither confirmed nor denied that the bureau was going to hold the inquiry against the former PPP minister.

Several attempts were made to contact Mr Malik but he was not available for comment.

NAB sources said the bureau had received complaints that at least 2,000 blue passports had either been sold to influential people at a hefty price of Rs1.5 million to Rs2m each or issued to undeserving officials between July 2010 and February this year.

According to the complaints, a former federal minister and a number of senior officials of the interior ministry and the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports were allegedly involved in the sale of diplomatic passports. On May 21, former director general of Immigration and Passports Zulfiqar Cheema accused Rehman Malik of causing an artificial delay in preparation of passports in a bid to award the contract for supplying laminate patches to a private firm.

He said that when he assumed the charge on April 9, there was a backlog of about 700,000 passports and the mafia in connivance with corrupt officials in the passport office was taking a bribe of Rs10,000-15,000 for preparing a passport within due date and Rs20,000-25,000 on an urgent basis.

NAB was informed that the sale of blue passports started in 2010 and it continued unabated till February this year, when three people from Sialkot were detained at the Lahore airport by the immigration authorities for failing to show a no-objection certificate.