ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to file a reply on all petitions in the fake degree case pertaining to the bureau’s Lahore DG, Saleem Shahzad.
A two members bench of the top court presided over by Justice Azmat Saeed took up the case for hearing.
Petitioner Asad Kharal told the court that a copy of the reply given by NAB has not been provided to him so far.
At this, Justice Azmat Saeed remarked, “How can we give you copy of it as NAB has not filed a reply on all petitions so far.”
The NAB prosecutor general told the court the NAB has filed a new reply on the matter related to the NAB Lahore DG.
The court remarked, “A copy of reply should be provided to Asad Kharal at every cost.”
The court while directing NAB to file reply on all the petitions in this case adjourned the hearing of the case for indefinite period.
In December last year, the master’s degree of NAB Lahore DG Shahzad Saleem was authenticated by the Higher Education Commission.
The NAB Lahore DG’s degree was sent to HEC for authentication on December 24, according to the NAB spokesperson, adding that the HEC has verified that Saleem earned a ‘100 per cent genuine’ degree from the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) campus of Al-Khair University in 2002.
The Supreme Court had delisted a case about the alleged fake degree of the NAB Lahore’s chief filed by a local journalist. The matter of Saleem’s degree was brought up in the apex court last year during hearing of a suo motu case related to illegal appointments in the top anti-graft watchdog.
The top court had announced taking up the case after the NAB Lahore DG made controversial appearances at TV shows in which he discussed the ongoing cases against PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif in November 2018.
