The government continues to drag its feet in the investigation of the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam case, as despite Supreme Court orders it has not asked Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Additional Director General Zafar Qureshi to resume investigation into the scam.
The government’s dilly-dallying clearly suggests that it wants to buy time so that Qureshi retires next month and another officer is appointed to head the NICL inquiry. “No notification has yet been issued by the Interior Ministry to reinstate Qureshi as chief investigator,” a source in the Interior Ministry said.
The Supreme Court had quashed the government’s order suspending Qureshi, ordering him to resume the task of recovering the money stolen in the scam. The apex court had issued the orders on August 8, but the government failed to comply with them in the three days that have passed since then. The Interior Ministry neither withdrew Qureshi’s suspension order nor issued a fresh notification in this regard.
Qureshi spent the whole of Tuesday waiting to hear from the FIA that his suspension had been cancelled in line with the court’s orders, but he was not approached by any official.
Qureshi visited the agency’s headquarters on Wednesday but there was hardly good news for him. A source in the FIA told Pakistan Today that Qureshi visited the headquarters and held a meeting with the FIA director general Tahseen Anwar Shah to discuss his rejoining the office.
A 17 member Supreme Court bench has already issued a judgement whereby a direction has been given that in future if any Judge/s validate military take-over, nobody is to accept. Not only that. The Judge/s giving such a judgement are to be tried under Article 6. So, the principle laid down is that judgements issued against Constitution and Law carry no weight.
Similarly, appointments & postings in FIA are the exclusive domain of Executive. Supreme Court has no business to interfere in such matters.
The order regarding Zafar Qureshi must not be implemented by the government. In fact Supreme Court's repeated interference in Executive domain asks for trial under Article 6.
The crux of the matter is that as long as Supreme Court continues to remain politicised, we cannot expect justice. The present Chief Justice, by nature and inclination, is political to the core. Just look at the way he led movement for his reinstatement against all norms of higher judiciary speaks volumes about this fact. He was making speaches, leading processions and demonstrations like any trade union leader.
We must not confuse his refusal to bow down before Musharraf and reinstatement struggle as representative of his high principles. All his actions showed relentless struggle to keep his chair. He shed all grace expected of a Judge. The way he has run Supreme Court subsequent to his reinstatement on March 16 through a Notification that he would be Chief Justice from March 22 is evidence enough. He clearly accepted Dogar as Chief Justice from the time March 16 Notification was issued till he assumed charge on March 22.
Comments are closed.