National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has set a benchmark of 75% conviction rate, against existing 65 %, in a new set of instructions which have been issued for strict compliance by all Regional NABs and NAB HQ. Chairman NAB, Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, took note of the fact that the Prosecution work is as important as the Investigation Wings and unless the cases are presented and prosecuted properly in the courts of law, the end result cannot be termed satisfactory from the NAB point of view.
Consequently, a committee was constituted by the Chairman NAB, consisting of representatives from Prosecution, Investigation and Human Resource (HR) Division to devise a mechanism for inspection, monitoring, and evaluation of NAB prosecution to improve its performance. On the finalization of the recommendations of the committee, these directions have been issued by the Bureau as 'Executive Orders,' said a press release issued by NAB here on Sunday. The directives approved by the Chairman have been issued by Prosecutor General Accountability (PGA) K K Agha. It has been decided that Monitoring and Inspection Teams (MIT) will be constituted at Headquarters (HQ) and Regional NAB levels to discreetly carryout random checks and report performance of the prosecution to the PGA. It has been decided that the concept of Combined Investigation Teams (CIT) will be developed for the Investigations.
Each CIT will consist of 2 Investigation Officers (IOs) and a Legal Counsel (LC)/ Prosecutor. On finalization of the Investigation, the Prosecutor /LC shall meticulously prepare his/her case for trail and prepare the Reference to be filed in Court. It shall be the responsibility of the concerned Investigation Wing (IW) to address the queries raised by the Prosecutor/LC. To ensure the Prosecutor's full involvement in the case the Draft Reference shall be prepared by him instead of IO. He will present the Reference in the Executive Board Meeting (EBM). The same Prosecutor will submit the Reference in Court and follow up for successful Prosecution. Prior to the filing of Reference the concerned DG, DPGA, IO and Senior Prosecutor entrusted with the case shall determine the timeline for the execution of the case and each Reference shall be monitored by DPGA on weekly basis to ensure adequate progress of the case against the agreed timeline. It has also been decided that NAB Prosecutors will not ask for adjournments and defence requests for adjournments will be opposed.
Prosecution will ensure that all objections to the adjournments are recorded in Order Sheets and the judge's attention is drawn to S.16 (a) of NAO, 1999. It has also been decided that the IO shall not appear before the Court unless there are orders of the Court to this effect or his/ her statement has to be recorded.
The PGA has also categorically conveyed to the Regions that since the Reference is finalized after thorough consultation within NAB its failure is not the sole responsibility of the IO, rather there shall be collective responsibility of all including DG and DPGA. The failed cases should be analyzed and lacunas be highlighted so that the same mistakes are not repeated. The DPGA (Regions) has been asked to ensure that Appeal matters are processed expeditiously. Appeals when legally justified must be filed within time. Missing of appellate deadlines will not be tolerated. It has also been decided that Witness handling Cells shall be established in each Region to ensure timely presence of witnesses and others allied matters. Selection of Prosecutors in NAB will be purely on merit and their performance will be assessed for further extension of contract period. It is expected that through following the given instructions NAB Prosecution's performance will improve qualitatively as well as quantitatively.
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