Rs 400 billion under litigation: AGP to draft new SOPs for ministries and departments

In order to expedite the government cases of Rs 400 billion pending in various courts of laws, Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) will formulate new Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for ministries and government departments till January 2017.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has constituted a committee headed by Minister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid and Attorney General of Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf Ali, Auditor General of Pakistan Rana Asad Amin, Secretary Law and Justice Karamat Hussain Niazi and Additional Secretary PAC Secretariat are its members. PAC met on Tuesday under its chairman Syed Khurshid Shah.
PAC discussed the issue of weak follow up of court cases by the ministries, divisions and departments and the procedure adopted for hiring of lawyers and legal firms. Auditor General of Pakistan revealed that it was a tip of iceberg as Rs 400 billion public money is under litigation in last 13 years which were identified in 10 percent audit of whole record of ministries and government departments. "If we carry out whole audit than the amount may go up to trillions", AGP remarked.
He suggested three-pronged strategy is being devised to deal with court cases, involving public money. He emphasised that the secretary should be empowered to hire lawyers or legal firms instead of sending request to Ministry of Law and Justice. Second, new SOPs must be made to deal court cases and a data of courts cases involving public money should be maintained, he added.
Rana Asad Amin further said that the issue of litigation involving government money could be resolved if the concerned takes some interest. In most of the cases, he said that the secretary did not know about court cases in the ministries. He further disclosed that he issued instruction to all audit officials to also examine the details of courts cases during audit.
Ashtar Ausaf Ali informed the committee that he is already working on the issue and a meeting of federal secretaries was also called on September 26 to find out a way out how to expedite such court cases. He further said that the AGP office had installed a data entry system which would the have details of lawyers/legal firm, cost and next date of hearing of the government cases.