ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman former Justice Javed Iqabl on Tuesday rejected the perception of one-sided accountability process, and said the bureau was striving hard to eradicate corruption by pursuing the policy of accountability for all, merit, and transparency.

NAB chairman expressed these views addressing a cheques distribution ceremony among the affectees of Modaraba scam at the NAB headquarters. The NAB with its limited resources made efforts to conduct better investigations introducing a new mechanism, he said for investigations.

The NAB chairman said some decisions of the Chief Justice of Pakistan had provided guidelines to the NAB as a result of those guidelines the NAB prepared rules, which were not made since 1990. We have sent these rules to the president and on his direction the NAB is sending these rules to the prime minister. The NAB has prepared the rules after studying rules of other countries, he said.

The NAB chairman said an anchorperson during his program said chairman NAB had extended his tenure. "I will neither get nor demand even an extension of one hour in tenure," he said. This is very unfortunate that those who do not read NAB laws are criticising the NAB, he said.

He told that the NAB had recovered Rs364 billion so far from the corrupt people and total references filed by the bureau in different accountability courts involved Rs12 billion. The chairman NAB said anti-graft body never takes action against an innocent person.

He said that Modaraba scam was one the biggest robbery in the history of the country. This was not an ordinary public cheating case, he said, adding that in this case few people involved have been sentenced for 14 years in jail and imposed fine of more than Rs10 billion.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020