ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has held that mere filing of a corruption reference by the chairman or officers of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) before an accountability court does not carry an implied permission to arrest the suspect unless explicitly authorised by the bureau’s chairman or an authorised officer.

“The permission to arrest must be expressed and based on reasonable grounds and substance,” Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah observed on Friday.

He was a member of a three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial, that had taken up an appeal by Mohammad Ibrahim against the Nov 23, 2017, Sindh High Court (SHC) rejection of his pre-arrest bail.

The judgement, authored by Justice Shah, specifically noted the NAB prosecutor could not place before it any permission of the NAB chairman or any authorised officer to arrest the petitioner.

Under Section 24(a) of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), the NAB chairman has the power, at any stage, of the inquiry or investigation to order the arrest of the accused, explained the SC verdict.

Likewise under the same provision, the officer making the arrest is under an obligation to inform the suspect of the grounds and substance on the basis of which he is being arrested, Justice Shah observed, adding that proviso to Section 18(e) of NAO mandates that no person would be arrested without the permission of the chairman or any NAB officer duly authorised by him. Collective reading of these provisions show that the permission of the NAB chairman or any officer of NAB authorised by him must be obtained by the investigating officer before the accused can be arrested, and there must be reasonable grounds and substance on the basis of which permission for arrest is to be granted.

Retired Justice Mushir Alam, while hearing a case in January 2020, had wondered why NAB had to send suspects to jail first before starting to look for evidence against them and why the bureau could not first collect evidence and prepare the reference before taking suspects into custody.

In the present case, Mohammad Ibrahim had sought leave to appeal against the Nov 23, 2017, order of the SHC that rejected his pre-arrest bail plea. The anti-graft watchdog had moved against the petitioner on complaints filed against the Management Committee of the Pak-Punjab Cooperative Housing Society that they allegedly transferred the plots of the original allottees to fake persons and illegally sold plots to some builders.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2022