At a time when corruption is eating up a considerable chunk of national resources, the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) have held that pending investigations and trials of alleged corruption by bureaucrats is no bar to their promotion.
Both the Law Ministry and NAB are unanimous that an officer can be promoted to the higher post in the light of Civil Servants Rule 1973, by the Departmental Selection Board, even when a reference is pending against him with NAB or court. According to a source in the Ministry of Housing and Works, the opinion came in response to the letters written by the Ministry of Housing and Works seeking opinion of the Law Ministry and NAB with regard to a particular case involving deferment of promotion case of Chaudhry Muhammad Amin, executive engineer (BS-18) in PWD.
The Departmental Selection Board (DSB) had dropped his case for promotion to the next grade on March 22, on the grounds that a reference was pending against him in a NAB court for the last four years. The ministry initially took up the matter with NAB for clarification and in reply, NAB intimated that it had no objection in posting or promotion of the officer against whom the inquiry or investigation was pending.
In a separate letter written to the Public Service Commission chairman, the Establishment Division secretary and the four chief secretaries, NAB recommended that all civil servants whose cases were pending with NAB might be considered for postings or promotions in order to “give them fair and just chance for their progression”. The letter expressed concern that whenever a NAB inquiry was initiated against a government official, his career progression was stopped by the department concerned.
The letter said investigation by NAB was a process in which it was determined whether the allegations against a concerned person were substantiated by the evidence or otherwise. It further said that due to the peculiar nature of white collar crime investigation, the process invariably took considerable time before it was finalised. However, NAB asked the Housing Ministry to obtain further advice in this regard from the Establishment and Law divisions.
Subsequently, the Law Ministry said in its opinion that there was no legal bar on the officer being considered for promotion to the higher post during an investigation regarding alleged corruption, as the law presumed every accused innocent until proven otherwise. It said cases of corruption against public servants were investigated by NAB on reference and registered after preliminary inquiries only when a prima facie case appeared to have been made out.
