The Supreme Court Tuesday issued directives to Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) to proceed with audit of Defense Housing Authority (DHA) as per law. It also asked the authority to provide all the record to audit officials. Resuming the hearing of identical petitions relating to state institutions' claim for immunity from audit of accounts, a three-member bench led by Chief Justice Jawwad S Khawaja ruled that all federal and provincial governments and departments are required to have their accounts audited by the AGP.
The prosecutor general told the court that DHA has allegedly occupied 137 kanals of land of the Punjab government, of which 64 kanals was allotted by the then prime minister Muhammad Khan Junejo for settlement of slum dwellers in Lahore. Previously, AGP Rana Asad Amin informed the bench that there were 19 institutions which were claiming immunity from the provision of 170 (2) of the constitution, adding that later on eight institutions are not subject to audit by Auditor General of Pakistan.
Rana further submitted that his office had written six letters to DHA for holding audit of its accounts, but the DHA management did not co-operated in the matter. He pointed out that his office has no power like Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to undertake the audit of any institution. However, the DHA's counsel pleaded that his client is not subject to audit by Auditor General of Pakistan but the court said that immunity claim from audit by 19 state institutions was against the constitutional provisions.
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