PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has decided to club all petitions against a controversial presidential ordinance that curtailed several powers of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar fixed July 7 for the next hearing into a petition of around 200 people, mostly the residents of Nowshera district, who sought orders to declare the Dec 28 ordinance unconstitutional.

It directed the NAB prosecutor to produce a list of cases pending with the court about that ordinance declaring that they will be heard together on July 7.

Additional attorney general Qazi Babar Irshad said the National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019, had lapsed after the completion of its constitutional life of four months and therefore, the petition had become infructuous.

He requested the court to dispose of the petition.

200 people have challenged ordinance that curtailed several powers of bureau

Shah Faisal Ilyas, lawyer the petitioners, said apart from challenging the ordinance, his clients had also sought the court’s orders to declare illegal and unconstitutional any act done on the strength of that ordinance.

He said several high-profile people, including a former prime minister, were provided relief on basis of the ordinance.

The lawyer said several cases pending with the NAB or accountability courts were transferred to the anti-corruption establishment or other agencies for action.

He requested the bench to direct the NAB to proceed with the inquiries or investigations and trials under the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999.

Shah Faisal Ilyas said several cases had come to an end, while money launders had been facilitated.

He said through the ordinance, the offence of the misuse of authority was almost abolished in the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, by adding the words ‘materially benefitted’ with it.

The lawyer said the offences of illegal schemes and destructive projects designing authorities were also excluded from the column of offences and giving opinion, reports etc by the authority through which if loss occurred to public exchequer was no longer an offence.

The petitioners contended that in several petitions decided by the high court related to illegal appointments by the government the court had ordered the NAB to conduct inquiries.

They said amendments to the NAO 1999 through the National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019, had rendered many of the high court judgments and pending petitions infructuous.

The petitioners said several inquiries and investigations were stopped and trials vitiated proving that the impugned ordinance was against the basic anti-corruption and anti-corrupt practices law.

They said an amendment to Section 9(a) (ix) (x) and (xi) of the NAO was made wherein for sake of misuse of authority, financial gain of transaction was made part and parcel otherwise the misuse of authority would be no offence under the law.

They claimed that the ordinance was basically made for the protection of all those political and bureaucratic entities that were on same footing with the government.

The respondents in the petition are the president and prime minister through their respective principal secretaries, NAB chairman and its director general, attorney general for Pakistan, federal secretaries of law and interior divisions, and provincial law secretary and advocate general.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2020