The Supreme Court was requested on Saturday to initiate contempt proceedings against National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry, among others on allegations of misleading the court by submitting an incomplete list of mega scams.
Dr Shafiqur Rahman, who moved the petition, alleged that an imperfect list of mega scams was presented before the Supreme Court. This, he claimed, was done with mala fide intent to favour the culprits and obstruct justice. He named 17 people including the NAB director general for operations, NAB Rawalpindi DG Zahir Shah, Bahria Town Chairman Malik Riaz Hussain, his son Ahmed Ali Riaz, CDA Chairman Maroof Afzal, Rawalpindi Commissioner Zahid Saeed, Rawalpindi District Coordination Officer Sajad Zaffar Dal, the Punjab chief minister’s principal secretary and Punjab forests secretary, along with others.
On July 10, NAB had submitted a list of 150 mega corruption scandals to the Supreme Court, through its DG Operations, containing 50 cases each of financial and property scandals, as well as cases involving abuse of power by holders of public offices.
But realising its mistake, NAB — of its own accord — submitted another list of 29 mega scams on July 22, conceding that the fresh cases should have been included along with the initial list. The petitioner, however, believes that the actual number of cases involving corruption of a large scale has been concealed by NAB officials. In reality, the petitioner contended, cases involving embezzlement or misappropriation of tens of billions of rupees have still not been identified, allegedly to help the actual culprits.
The additional list of 29 cases is, in fact, a confession and thus NAB has admitted to criminal breach of trust, he maintains.
The cases also include the encroachment of around 12,000 kanals of land in the Rakh Lohi Bher and Rakh Takht Pari Forest Reserve — again by DHA and Bahria Town — which is valued at over Rs240bn. The Supreme Court has already taken cognisance of these cases.
The petitioner contended that he also presented a number of documents to substantiate his claim to the NAB officials citing a letter from December 2010.
The letter was addressed to CDA and dealt with CDA’s land holdings acquired for the construction of the Islamabad Highway.
Not including these land scams in the list of mega scams that was submitted in court indicated that there were corrupt practices prevalent within the rank and file of NAB, the petitioner alleged.
