The government seems to have pulled out all stops to support its new coalition partner, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), as it suspended Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Additional Director General (DG) Zafar Qureshi on Monday, two days after his reinstatement on orders from the Supreme Court to head the investigation team probing the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam, to the annoyance of the apex court, which had taken a clear position on the appointment of Qureshi as chief investigator in the scam.
The Chaudhrys of Gujrat, who claim to have not interfered in the court and legal process implicating Moonis Elahi in the scam, have finally got Qureshi suspended after getting him transferred more than two times during the last year.
The Chaudhrys met Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Monday in the presence of Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who had a detailed meeting with Qureshi on Sunday and tried to convince him to take a lenient position on the issue. It has been learnt that Qureshi, who is considered an honest officer, refused to bow to any political pressure.
The PML-Q leaders and parliamentarians have been calling for the removal of Qureshi from the investigation, claiming that he was biased against the Chaudhrys. Qureshi, too, had similar views about the Chaudhrys and he had also told the Supreme Court that they could try to harm him. The notification issued by the Establishment Division said that Qureshi had been suspended under the Government Servants (Discipline and Efficiency) Rules of 1973 on charges of making contradictory public statements. Establishment Secretary Rauf Chaudhry told Pakistan Today he was unaware of the issuance of any such notification.
Qureshi told Pakistan Today that he had not received his suspension letter yet. “I have no confirmation about my suspension,” he said, adding that he was just receiving news about his suspension from TV channels.
On July 1, the Supreme Court had suspended Qureshi’s transfer orders. During the course of the hearing of the NICL scam in the apex court, Babar Awan, lawyer to the federal secretaries who had been issued contempt of court notices by the court, had told the court that Prime Minister Gilani – under the law of division of power – had rejected the summary to bring back Qureshi into the NICL scam investigation team.
While suspending Qureshi’s transfer orders, the chief justice had remarked that the officer had recovered Rs 1.75 billion for the national exchequer, which was a record recovery in a criminal case and had urged him to assist the court in the NICL scam case.
