The Supreme Court on Friday suspended the transfer notification of FIA Additional Director General Capt (r) Zafar Ahmed Qureshi until further orders and directed him to immediately resume probe into the NICL scam.
A three-member SC bench, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Tariq Parvez and Justice Amir Hani Muslim, directed FIA Director General Malik Iqbal to extend all necessary assistance to Qureshi for carrying out investigation into the NICL scam cases.
The court order said, “No interference of any nature whatsoever shall be caused either by the FIA DG or by any other authority and Qureshi would take over the charge of the investigation of the cases of the NICL scam in Lahore immediately and would be free to take all steps and adopt all measures in discharge of his duties necessary for conducting transparent investigation.”
The court noted that the letter written by the FIA DG to the Interior Ministry indicated that it had been written to bring into the notice the progress of the investigation in the cases for necessary information and had never suggested that Qureshi was no longer required. The reply of three federal secretaries to the contempt of court notices issued to them for their involvement in Qureshi’s transfer had prima facie been drawn from Iqbal’s letter.
The court said after the transfer of Qureshi the progress in the investigation of the NICL scam had come to a stand still. Babar Awan, counsel for the government, told the court that the summary for Qureshi’s repatriation to the FIA had been rejected by the prime minister. The chief justice told Awan that every order of the court was being violated.
