The federal Law Ministry, which is supposed to be responsible for protecting the sanctity of laws and rules of the land, has been caught red-handed by audit authorities when they pointed out that the release of huge monetary grants to various bar associations of the country by former law minister Dr Babar Awan, in fiscal year 2009-10, was illegal.
“While auditing the accounts of the Law Ministry for the financial year 2009-10 in order to prepare prepare audit report for 2010-11, the audit officials found that under rules and regulations, the ministry could only provide grant-in-aid to bar councils and not directly to bar associations,” said a source in the office of the Auditor General of Pakistan. He said the audit officials had told the high-ups of the Law Ministry that under the rules, bar councils could only provide funds received from the ministry to bar associations and the ministry could in no condition directly bestow favours on bar associations.
“The audit officials have asked the Law Ministry’s officials to get post facto approval from parliament on the release of around Rs 220 million in the fiscal year 2009-10 to bar associations, otherwise the amount would be recovered from former law minister Dr Babar Awan, who had distributed the money violating the set rules and procedures,” said the source. The audit officials told Pakistan Today that during the first six months of the FY 2009-10, whose audit was carried out in 2010-11, the Law Ministry could not distribute any considerable funds among the bar associations, but after Awan’s took oath as law minister in December 2009, around Rs 200 million were disbursed in the following few months.
The Law Ministry had also recently told the Senate, while responding to a question asked in writing by Senator Hafiz Rashid, that it had disbursed over Rs 220 million during financial year 2009-10 among various bar associations across the country, and the amount distributed in FY 2008-09 was over Rs 90 million. Another source in the Law Ministry told Pakistan Today that the ministry was preparing a draft legislation aimed at amending the rules and regulations to get post facto approval of the funds disbursed by the incumbent or former law ministers, including Afzal Sindhu, Babar Awan and Maula Bux Chandio, among bar associations in the last three financial years.
The Law Ministry has also told the Senate that the ministry was provided Rs 80 million as supplementary grant during FY 2008-09, whereas it had a total budget of Rs 10 million during that period. The ministry told the Upper House of parliament further that in the FY 2009-10, around Rs 400 million was given to the ministry as supplementary grants, whereas its sanctioned budget was only Rs 18 million.
In the current fiscal year 2010-11, the audit of which would be held after June 30, 2011, the Law Ministry has been allocated a total of Rs 1.464 billion for spending throughout the year under various heads, while Rs 420 million out of the total sum has been earmarked for bar associations. When asked to comment on the allocation of Rs 420 million to bar associations in the federal budget 2010-11, the audit official said: “If the ministry fails to get rules amended by the parliament, this spending would also be declared illegal in the next audit report.”
It is not the first time that the Law Ministry violated set rules and procedures in showering favours on lawyers in an apparent bid to win their sympathies, as the Pakistan People’s Party, in its first year in power (2008-2009), bestowed Rs 12.673 million on the party’s stalwart lawyers by making illegal appointments of federal counsels on retainer. The government had brought a piece of legislation in parliament to get post facto approval for the appointments of federal counsels, on objections in the audit report 2009-10 on accounts of the Law Ministry for the FY 2008-09.
The audit report 2009-10 had further revealed that the appointments of federal counsels on monthly retainer were not covered under any law and no procedure and criteria such as age limit, qualifications or quota had been framed. “The appointments were made without any assessment of workload and despite the fact that one attorney general, 32 deputy attorney generals and 26 standing counsels and panel advocates were also available in law and justice division for conducting cases by or against the federal government,” the official document stated.
