NAB investigation officers, prosecutors feel immense workload handling key cases

ISLAMABAD: As the country’s top corruption watchdog begins probing fake accounts scam referred by the Supreme Court (SC), the National Accountability Bureau witnesses a record-high backlog of corruption cases pending with around two dozen accountability courts.

Around 24 accountability courts and around a dozen high courts were handling over 1,210 references involving more than Rs1,070 billion embezzled by around 11,876 accused, revealed official statistics of NAB.

The apex court ordered the NAB to wrap up investigations into fake accounts case in two months.

Nine accountability courts are dealing with a record number of 270 cases in Punjab with four courts each in Lahore and Rawalpindi, while one court is handling 60 cases pending in Multan, official figures continued to reveal.

Two accountability courts are dealing with around 69 cases in Islamabad while an accountability court is dealing with some 39 cases in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Six accountability courts are dealing with around 345 references in Sindh, where four courts are operating in Karachi and one each in Sukkur and Hyderabad.

There are two accountability courts in Balochistan, which are now hearing around 67 cases over there. More than 249 cases are being pleaded in four accountability courts of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, revealed the official figures exclusively obtained by Geo News.

Some 81 prosecutors are handling over 1,210 references in different courts while some 750 investigation/inquiry officers (BS16-BS18) have been engaged in around 8,120 investigations/inquiries across the country.

The accountability courts and Lahore High Court, Sindh High Court, Peshawar High Court, Islamabad High Court and SC dealt with 733 references filed during the period of 2015 to 2017. Some 238 references were filed with aforementioned courts in 2015, 320 in 2016 and 175 references were heard in these courts in 2017.

As many as 141 references were decided in favour of NAB, which is quite low in ratio during this period. Some 45 of total 238 favored NAB in 2015, 40 of total 320 references were decided in favour of NAB in 2016 and 56 of total 175 references were decided in favour of NAB in 2017, revealed the official figures.

In addition to it, around 18 special anti-corruption courts are handling 9, 500 cases; the highest number of cases pending in these special courts in the country’s history, as per the official figures collected from Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan.

As many as 46, 000 cases are pending with some 36 banking courts across the country, official figures continued to reveal.

Five banking courts are operating in Karachi, six in Lahore, two in Hyderabad; two banking courts each in Gujranwala, Peshawar, Quetta and Bahawalpur are operating while one banking court is taking up cases related to money laundering in federal capital Islamabad.

Around 4, 000 cases were pleaded in three banking courts of Rawalpindi, Sukkur and Faisalabad, added the official figures. Some 946 cases are pending with five special courts (taxation & anti-smuggling) across the country accordingly.

Some 43,552 of total 44,315 complaints were handled by NAB across the country from Oct 2017 to September 2018, official figures stated that it is the highest number of complaints top corruption watchdog ever witnessed in past 12 months. Also, 877 inquiries and 227 investigations were authorised by NAB Chairman Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal during this period.

The NAB Chairman also authorised filing of 440 references, where 80 accused were convicted during the last year.

Official figures continued to reveal that 503 arrests were also made during this period. Some 9,000 complaints were filed with NAB Lahore, over 7,000 with NAB Karachi, 41,000 with NAB Peshawar, 1,450 with NAB Balochistan, 7,841 with Rawalpindi, 3,500 with Multan and 6,000 with NAB Sukkur and rest of the complaints were lodged with NAB Headquarter, according to official figures collected from all its regional offices.

Some 7,000 concluded, 50 references were filed by NAB Rawalpindi and recovered Rs218 million. The anti-graft watchdog has recovered Rs296 billion since its inception in 1999, NAB added.

In 2017, some 27,096 complaints were filed with NAB. As many as 6,782 complaints were lodged with NAB Lahore, 5,093 with NAB Karachi, 872 NAB Balochistan, 3,432 with NAB Rawalpindi, 2,218 NAB Multan, 4,845 complaints were lodged with in NAB Sukkur in 2017.

As many 6,103 writ-petitions (WPs) were filed in high courts from 2015-17. Decisions of 3,713 WPs went in favour of NAB during this period. 466 (186 in 2015, 117 in 2016 & 143 in 2017) appeals filed in High Courts. 136 WPs were decided in favour of NAB during this period. Appeals of 340 cases (221 in 2015, 92 in 2016 & 27 in 2017) were filed in the apex court by NAB from 2015-17. As many as 22 appeals were decided in favour of NAB during this period. 252 plea bargains were done during this period (2015-17), revealed the figures.

The estimated strength of NAB is of around 2,977 employees (BS-1 to BS-22) at the moment, which is reasonably less as NAB officials said.

The sanction posts for BS-21 officers are eight in total, but currently there are five officers named Zahir Shah, DG Operations, Brig (retd) Farooq Naser Awan, DG Sindh, Husnain Ahmad, DG NAB Headquarter and Justice (retd) Asghar Haider, Prosecutor General NAB and Add PG NAB Akbar Tarrar while post of Deputy NAB chairman is vacant and DG NAB Balochistan Abid Javed is serving as BS-22 officer of Pakistan Administrative Services, they revealed.

Some six additional/deputy prosecutor generals are also serving NAB accordingly. Around a dozen NAB officers were also facing inquires as well.