Supreme Court annuls amendments to NAB Ordinance

The Supreme Court (SC) scrapped on Friday amendments made to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999 last year and admitted Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan’s petition challenging it.

A three-judge bench, headed by CJP Bandial and comprising Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, announced the reserved verdict, which included restoring graft cases against public office holders that were closed down following the amendments.

These include the Toshakhana reference against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Supremo Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan Peoples Party Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, along with the LNG reference against former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and the rental power reference against former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.

Meanwhile, the CJP and Justice Ahsan declared the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman’s plea to be maintainable while Justice Shah disagreed with the majority verdict.

The apex court declared null and void the verdicts issued by the accountability courts in light of the amendments made to the laws and directed NAB to send the record to the relevant courts within seven days.

Last year in May, the National Assembly had passed bills to abolish election reforms made by PTI when it was in power, giving overseas Pakistanis the right to vote, and made amendments to National Accountability Bureau (NAB) laws.

Imran filed a petition in June, 2022, challenging changes in various provisions of the NAO which were made allegedly to benefit influential accused persons and legitimise corruption of those whose case were pending before the Accountability Courts.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court had reserved judgment on the petition. At the time, the chief justice had said: “Cooperation and valuable assistance rendered by petitioner’s counsel Khawaja Haris, the federation’s lawyer Makhdoom Ali Khan and prosecutor general NAB was great.”

“We will retire to consider and reserve it, and announce the decision soon. Something short and sweet should come out, that may be done soon.”

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.

The bill also limited NAB’s jurisdiction to cases involving over Rs500 million.