SC reserves verdict on Imran Khan’s petition against NAB amendments

The Supreme Court (SC) reserved on Tuesday its verdict on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s petition against amendments to the National Account­ability (NAB) Ordinance.

Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial said the bench will announce the date of the verdict later.

“The SC will announce a short and sweet verdict soon,” he said.

During the last hearing, the CJP had noted that the evidence obtained under mutual legal assistance (MLA) had been abolished in the amendments.

The CJP said the amendments had abolished the status of evidence obtained under MLA, potentially making the process costlier for NAB.

He said evidence obtained from abroad was now inadmissible under the law, which raised concerns who would benefit from these changes.

The chief justice said, “Now NAB will have to take services there itself, which will be expensive,” adding it was said that apart from MLA, there have been reports of properties from abroad, but those are not acceptable under law.“

He added that records obtained by the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) from abroad were not admissible evidence in the court.

Last year in May, the National Assembly passed bills to abolish the PTI government’s election reforms giving overseas Pakistanis the right to vote through i-Voting and electronic voting machines (EVMs), as well as the NAB laws.

Amendments to the bill

As per the NAB (Second Amendment) Bill 2021, the bureau’s deputy chairman, to be appointed by the federal government, would become the acting chairman of NAB following the completion of the tenure of the chairman.

The bill also reduced the four-year term of the NAB chairman and the bureau’s prosecutor general to three years.

The bill states that regulatory bodies functioning in the country have also been placed out of NAB’s domain.