ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday said it will hear a case regarding the alleged fake degree of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Lahore Director General (DG) Saleem Shahzad on November 12.
The matter of Shahzad’s degree was brought up in the apex court last year during the hearing of a suo motu case on alleged illegal appointments within NAB.
A petitioner had claimed that Shahzad’s master’s degree transcript from 2002 is in the Calibri font, which was not commercially available until five years later.
Following an internal probe, the corruption watchdog had deemed Shahzad’s degree genuine and cleared him of any wrongdoing.
The case, however, is still in the apex court, which announced on Friday that a three-member bench under Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar will hear the case on Monday (Nov 12).
The court also issued a notice to the petitioner.
The authenticity of DG NAB Lahore’s degree was also questioned during a news talk show on Thursday.
The NAB official, whose recent spree of appearances on talks shows has infuriated former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and also caught the NAB chairman’s notice, told TV anchorperson Shahzeb Khanzada that The News reporter Waseem Abbasi, who broke the story regarding his degree, had already apologised to him upon being proven wrong.
Minutes later on the same show, the reporter rejected Shahzad’s claim and clarified that he stands by his story and has not apologised to the NAB official.
In a tweet on Friday, the reporter shared a verdict of the Peshawar High Court which suggests that the master’s degree of Shahzad was not verified in a proper way from the Higher Education Commission (HEC).
Here is the HEC response submitted in Peshawar High Court regarding degree of DG NAB saleem Shahzad..it clearly says the degree was verified inadvertently coz university did not mention the campus ok degree and they misguided HEC.. DG claims he studied in ISB, Non-Recognized pic.twitter.com/W2IXRPxe4Q
— Waseem Abbasi (@Wabbasi007) November 9, 2018
Former PM Abbasi also alleged that the DG NAB holds a fake degree, which requires prompt verification from the HEC. He further slammed the NAB Lahore DG for “violating the very conduct of his organisation”.
NAB CHIEF SEEKS RECORD OF MEDIA TALK:
Meanwhile, NAB chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal sought the record of Shahzad’s media interactions that has put him in hot water.
“NAB respects all respectable lawmakers,” read a statement issued by the anti-graft watchdog, adding that the bureau will look into the matter to ascertain if details contrary to facts, violating rights of the parliamentarians, were shared during the TV interviews or not.