ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court on Monday sought government’s response on the National Accountability Ordinance e provisions of voluntary return of corruption money.
A division bench of the apex court heard a case relating to voluntary return of corruption money to NAB. During the hearing, a member of the bench Justice Azmat Saeed came down heard on NAB for its failure to check corruption.
Justice Saeed remarked that NAB had become facilitator of corrupts. He sarcastically asked as to why the Bureau was not getting advertisement published in the newspaper offering services for carrying out corruption.
He further remarked that a peon was sent to jail for doing corruption of just Rs150 but a man involved in Rs2.5 billion was allowed to go scot free.
Prosecutor NAB submitted that the voluntary return provisions were not enacted by NAB. He added that when NAB netted big fish, the media created hype of Rs40 billion corruption. He added that the total budget of the province was not Rs40 billion.
Upon this, Justice Amir Hani Muslim remarked that it was true NAB had not enacted the law but it was definitely misusing the provision.
Regarding complaints about media, he said that its better the NAB prosecutor should lodged the complaint about media outside the courtroom.
On the occasion, Attorney General for Pakistan told the court a committee headed by Law Minister was reviewing the provisions of Voluntary Returns. The court while asking the AGP to file government response on the VR and adjourned the hearing for two weeks.
