Aggrieved following Supreme Court decision on National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) that contains his removal, Abdul Baseer Qureshi, Additional Prosecutor-General, National Accountability Bureau (NAB), on Monday requested the court for review of its judgement and expunging the remarks against him.
On December 16, 2009, while declaring the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) invalid from the outset, a 17-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had directed the government to appoint NAB Chairman, Prosecutor General and Additional Prosecutor General afresh.
The bench had held, "We place on record our displeasure with regard to the conduct and lack of proper and honest assistance and co-operation on the part of the Chairman of the NAB, the Prosecutor General of the NAB and of the Additional Prosecutor General of the NAB, namely, Abdul Baseer Qureshi in this case.
Consequently, it is not possible for us to trust them with proper and diligent pursuit of the cases falling within their respective spheres of operation". Qureshi contended that he wanted inclusion of certain additional material to an already filed review petition after the release of detailed judgement against the NRO.
Tilting his argument to prove his impartial performance for the NAB, he stated to have appeared as a special prosecutor against President Asif Ali Zardari in Steel Mills Reference. The accused (Zardari) was convicted under section 4 of the Ehtesab Act 1997 and sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment, he added.
The petitioner had opposed the bail application of moved by Zardari in BMW reference and in Steel Mills reference. And, after the judgement in latter case, he was granted special certificate of appreciation for his extraordinary dedication and devotion to duty in handling sensitive and complicated NAB cases and was awarded a sum of Rs 100,000 as cash reward, said the petition.
Similarly, Qureshi said he had appeared against Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Muhammad Nawaz Khokhar, a former federal minister in the PPP government, Admiral (Retd) Mansoor-ul-Haq, he said in the petition. Having stated this, the petition prayed for review of remarks against him in the impugned judgement for the reason that the petitioner diligently and professionally brought the orders of this court to the NAB authorities for compliance.
"The petitioner is not keeper of the record, nor prepared any list asked by the court", he added. That the petitioner is nearing 70 years of age and is not interested to carry on with the NAB but prays for graciousness of this court for the deletion/expunction of the adverse remarks against him as contained in para 31 and 180 of the judgement under the review in order to concentrate on his profession, which is the only source of his income, he added.
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