During the last ten years, five accountability courts in Lahore dismissed 105 cases on the request of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), on the basis of lack of evidence against the accused. This track record shows serious defects in the procedure of collection of evidence adopted by NAB courts.
Sources said that most references filed by NAB in the last ten years had no legal grounds and were filed only to serve as tools of political victimization. An example of this is ex-MNA Abdul Ahad Malik’s case. Ahad built a commercial plaza called “Ahad Tower” at Kalma Chowk. During its construction, NAB arrested Ahad on corruption charges and ordered the cession of construction work at the site. Ahad was released only after he signed an undertaking stating that he would leave PML(N) and join PML(Q).
NAB Punjab requested the courts to dismiss cases against 115 accused including Ex-MNA Abdul Ahad Malik, Ex-MPA Mian Zulfiqar Ahmed, Ex- D.G WAPDA Shafiq ur Rehman and Ex-Director Excise and Taxation Akram Ashraf, while the other accused are Sami Ullah Ch, Babar Hassan Bharwana , Nasar Ullah Bhatti, Sheharyar Javed, Karim Bukhsh Baloch, Nasir Ali Khan, Ch. Ikraam Ullah, Malik Muhammad Mumtaz, Saeed Akbar Niwani, Arshad Zaman, Khizar Iqbal Virk, Manzar Hayaat, Naseer Khusro Jaffery, Malik Tasaddaq Hussain, Faqeer Anwar-ud-Din, Mian Miraj Din, Latif Raza, Zahoor Iqbal, Muhammad Aslam Shad, Muhammad Arshad, Khawar Khursheed, Abdul Wadood Khan, Safdar Abbas Zaidi, Mukhtar Hussain, Riaz Rasheed, Ch. Talib Hussain, Shamshad Ahmed Qureshi, M. Latif Mughal, Ch. Muhammad Masud, Mehr Ghulam Dastgir Luk, Ch. Muhammad Tufail, Mian Abdul Mannan, Naveed Saeed, Tariq Mehmood Qureshi, Muhammad Arshad Khan Lodhi, Ehsan Ullah Sardar, M. Aslam Mehboob, Allah Ditta Patwari, Jam Shah Muhammad, M. Farooq Javed, Dr. Manzar Jameel, Najeeb Sabir, Khalid Saleem, Muhammad Latif, Muhammad Shafi, Muhammad Imtiaz, Mehdi Hassan, Mian Khan, Imdad Hussain, Munawar Hussain, Ehsan Elahi Tariq, Ejaz Randhawa, Intisar Hussain Bhatti, Abbas Ahmed, Shaukat Murtaza, Asif Jamil, Fateh Muhammad Sheikh, Muhammad Riaz, Rana Ghulam Rasool, Tahir Khurshid, Naveed Latif, Muhammad Azam Tarar, Malik Noor Hayat Noon ( two cases), Pathanay Khan, Mian Zulfiqar Ahmed, Dr. Azhar Atta Malik, Nisar Ahmed Zahid, Ashraf Mehmood, Rao Fazal ur Rehman, Syed Amjad Hassan, Rashid Butt, Muhammad Yousaf, Inayat Ullah Warriach, Mian Hussain Ifzal, Mehmood Khan Durani, Mirza Siraj Din, Muhammad Saeed, Ghulam Hussain, Naseer Ahmed, Fazal-e- Abbas, Imtiaz Elahi Johri, Shoukat Ali Shaheen, Javed Akhtar Shah, Muhammad Ishfaq Raza, Ghulam Hassan, Muhammad Iqbal, Amir Ali, Muhammad Raza Baqar, Ch. Muhamamd Sadiq, Nasir Mehmood Khan, Manzar ul Hassan, Nadeem Ahmed Bhatti, Fareeha Zulfiqar Ahmed, Ch. Safdar Rehman, Masood Akhtar Shaheedi (two cases), Sheikh Muhammad Yousaf, Mazhar Alam, Ijaz Hussain Balooch, Ch. Safdar Rehman, Tahir Bashir Cheema, Mazhar Alam, Rashid Butt, Ch. Abdul Hameed, Tanveer Hussain Butt, Basharat Ullah Amjad
Inefficiencies, victimization a decade-old NAB habit
