At long last, the leaders of Treasury and Opposition in the National Assembly have found in senior bureaucrat Chaudhry Qamar Zaman the man who should be appointed chairman of the National Accountability Bureau. It was a marathon search and could have continued God knows for how long had the Supreme Court not put its foot down for a decision without any further loss of time. Since May 28 when incumbent chairman Admiral Fasih Bukhari (Retd) was eased out of office the NAB is a headless body, resulting in deferment of action on hundreds of cases in the absence of its chairman's mandatory signatures. Was the delay on the part of the nominators a collusion to keep the legal wolf off their own doors - the Bureau has on its desk a number of corruption cases against the senior leaders of the PML (N) and PPP - for as long as possible, one would not like to comment on this aspect. However, the general impression is that both the government and the opposition were angling to have their 'Yes man' as the next accountability chief and differences on that remained a challenge. That 'Yes man' was expected to be something more than what many of earlier proposed persons are in spite of their impeccable record of service - though none is in the form of an angel.
The question whether in Qamar Zaman both sides have found their 'man' will find its answer in due course. But as of now that's not the take of the other opposition parties in the National Assembly. The PTI, PML (Q) and others have vigorously opposed his nomination, mainly citing his 'loyalty' to the party-in-power during his long service tenure. Of course, the most vocal in opposing his nomination is the Imran Khan-led PTI that has announced its plan to move the Supreme Court. There are rumours that this appointment has been made with the intent that it would be challenged and in case the challenge succeeds and another chairman is to be appointed the incumbent Chief Justice of Pakistan would have retired. Thus PTI's petition would serve the intended purpose. So let us make do with what we have with us, and therein fits Major Chaudhry Qamar Zaman (Retd.) who has been through the mill as he held various positions, often critically important, not only when the PML (N) and PPP were in power but he also served General Musharraf's military rule. Here is a Grade-22 officer who is well-versed with day-to-day running of the government at various levels. That, however, is not the essential qualification required for appointment as chairman of the National Accountability Bureau. He/she should be either a retired judge of Supreme Court or Chief Justice of High Court; or retired armed forces officer of rank equivalent to rank of Lieutenant General; or is a retired federal government officer of Grade-22 or equivalent. All of it makes the choice for this post both easy and difficult depending on how you look at it. If the past of a proposed nominee is supposed to dominate decision-making then there would be no end to search for the one who is as unblemished as an angel. So contentious remains our bureaucratic culture that it is nearly impossible to spot one having a controversy-free career. And for that ambience to prevail the rulers, whether in civvies or khakis, are no less responsible; given their limited respect for the rule of law they always look for pliable officers who would devise shortcuts to the otherwise difficult to reach goals. But looking to the future, the picture is not as hopeless as it seems to be. The buck had to stop somewhere and it has at long last. We should move on. There is a huge backlog of cases waiting to be investigated or referred to the accountability courts which would now be possible with bureau having its chairman. Meanwhile, the legislatures must think of ways and means to convert the NAB Ordinance into a proper enactment and as that task is taken in hand an attempt should be made to ensure that the law is suitably amended in order to escape the kind of situation we had with the exit of Fasih Bukhari. Also, the law must be amended to ensure that there is a cut-off date after which the case under investigation is either sent to court for prosecution or dropped for good. Perhaps, the parliament would like to legislate further on this piece of law in order to harmonise it both with the dictate of prompt delivery of justice and NAB's autonomy of action.
Comments
Comments are closed.