The Registrar Supreme Court of Pakistan is constitutionally bound to appear before Public Accounts Committee (PAC), as it is the only parliamentary watchdog which reviews the audits paras of all government institutions. This was stated by Yasmeen Rehman, a senior member of PAC while commenting on the reluctance of the apex court's registrar to appear before the parliamentary panel to discuss the audit paras, with the plea that it undertakes its own audit.
"There is no other parliamentary panel which can review and issue directives if public money is misused...it is a constitutional requirement, under which all government institutions should appear before the PAC to clear its audit objections", she added.
The registrar or a representative of Supreme Court, she added, had regularly appeared before the PAC till 2002 but after that they are not ready to bring the audit objections before the parliamentary committee. In response to apex court plea to the PAC that its accounts are audited by private auditors and hence no parliamentary panel is authorised to discuss the audit paras, Yasmeen said that it is a lame excuse as only PAC can settle audit objections.
"This is not an excuse that private chattered accountancy firms undertake your [SC] audit and you are given a clean chit that everything is going well. It is only the PAC which can settle the audit paras", she maintained. Former Supreme Court judge Justice Tariq Mehmood said that no institution including Supreme Court of Pakistan is immune from financial audit of its expenditures and settle its paras before PAC as the money allocated to the apex court is from the national exchequer.
He said that this is the apex court had unambiguously supported checks and balances in all public sector institutions but it [SC] is not ready to give the record of its own expenditures to a parliamentary panel despite repeated requests. "The Supreme Court says no one has immunity [and] we accept it but the money which they claim they do not have to account for is public money and therefore they should not hesitate to have it audited", he maintained.
He added that the financial independence of the court is limited to the extent of preparing its own budget. "Financial independence does not mean that you are not answerable to anybody because the money which is being allocated to the Supreme Court is decided by the parliament, which is public money and whoever uses it [money] is answerable to the people", he added.
Pakistan Bar Council Vice Chairman Akhtar Hussain said that if registrar Supreme Court appears before the PAC it would not be a challenge to the independence of the judiciary, and added that scrutiny of the SC accounts is an administrative matter. Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Fawad Chaudhry said that non-appearance of SC Registrar before PAC is misconduct and urged the Committee to move a reference against the registrar as the committee has the power to stop funding to Supreme Court.
General Secretary Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Aslam Zar said that according to SC rules, the Registrar is not bound to appear before the PAC but is answerable to the Chief Justice of Pakistan. "There is no provision in the Constitution that makes the Registrar SC bound to appear before the PAC", Zar added.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan had clarified on many occasions that parliament can not discuss the conduct of judges under Article 68 of the Constitution. In response to a letter written by two chairmen of PAC, the Registrar Supreme Court with the consent of full-court bench said that the panel could not carry out the audit of the apex judiciary.
While referring to Article 68 of the Constitution, the Registrar's letter said, "No discussion shall take place in parliament with respect to the conduct of any judge of Supreme Court or of a High Court in discharge of his duties".
The letter further maintains that the Constitution bars the committee to call any official including registrar of the apex court for any purpose. He, however, said that the president, being the head of state, has the authority to decide about the counselling domain of the court. The Registrar advised the PAC to approach president of the county in this regard.
The committee, during the chairmanship of Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), had sent the letter to the Supreme Court asking for the audit report. Under the directives of present Chairman Nadeem Afzal Chan, the PAC made the letter issued by the SC's full court public.
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