Bokhari adamant about SC authority in NAB appointment case

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Former chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Admiral (r) Fasih Bokhari on Friday filed a review petition again with the Supreme Court against its impugned order of May 28 declaring his appointment without lawful authority.

The registrar office had returned Fasih Bokhari’s review petition after raising objections. After addressing and removing the objections, he filed the petition again, requesting to halt the implementation of the earlier decision until the court issued a judgment on his review petition.

Earlier, he had filed a review petition through his counsel Latif Khosa and asked the apex court to review its decision and set aside its order of May 28.Chaudhry Nisar Khan of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had challenged Bokhari’s appointment as NAB chairman.

A five-member bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, on May 28 had observed that consultation over the appointment of chairman NAB had not been made in accordance with Section 6 of the NAB Ordinance, 1999 and hence Bokhari’s appointment was without lawful authority.

The court had directed the federal government to make fresh appointments without further delay. In his review petition, Bokhari, however, contended that the court’s decision over his appointment was without lawful authority and was devoid of any “legal or logical” basis apart from being a clear-cut violation of Section 6 of the NAB Ordinance of 1999.

He said that chairman NAB could only be removed by the president once he was appointed to this post. He said it was clearly envisaged in the Constitution that with regard to the appointment to be made by the president, either under the law or under the Constitution, he was not answerable to the Supreme Court in exercise of such functions.