NAB’s black sheep and character assassination of innocent people

By Kiran Bokhari

The Supreme Court has rightly taken notice of presence of ‘black sheep’ in the National Accountability Bureau that leaks information of certain people facing NAB inquiries to the media to achieve their nefarious designs.

NAB under retired Justice Javed Iqbal was supposed to do better on the front of nabbing corrupt elements, instead it seems to be more concerned to settling some agenda at the behest of someone.

There are many cases in which NAB’s black sheep start investigation on anonymous complaints and summon a person having a good repute. The first thing these black sheep do they issue a notice to such a person and release the same to some media groups that run it on their TV screens throughout the day maligning him till their purpose is achieved.

“NAB has no right to ridicule anyone,” Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar told the bureau’s prosecutor general Syed Asghar Haider during a hearing yesterday. The chief justice observed that the proceedings of the bureau were privileged in nature and could not be disclosed to the media officially.

“People summoned by NAB come to know about summons through the media in most of the cases. We cannot allow this kind of accountability,” the CJP thundered and said the court had proof that the bureau treated people unjustly without possessing any evidence against them. He observed that this practice of the anti-corruption watchdog would discourage foreign investors. “Do you want to drive out foreign investors from the country?” the chief justice asked the prosecutor general.

Will NAB Chairman Javed Iqbal clean his organisation from black sheep?

The practice of scandalising people was observed at the level of investigating officers. Chief Justice Nisar noted that there was a consideration at the time of the chairman’s appointment that a retired judge, if appointed (as NAB head), could save the bureau from the wrath of the Supreme Court. The chief justice directed the NAB chairman to meet him in his chamber along with the prosecutor general next Monday to discuss the issue.

After this, will this NAB which is cutting a sorry figure before every one because of the presence of a number of black sheep in it. Interestingly NAB does not bother to verify whether the complainant is himself a black sheep of a particular organization. What it does do it goes for character assassination by releasing in media that it is carrying out investigation against certain person mostly on frivolous complaints.

NAB never tells a person against whom is investigating that as who is the complainant. If NAB is so much clean in ints investigation it must tell that person about the grounds of the inquiry.  At the same time NAB has no law to penalize the complainant in case his complaint turns out to be fake. Who is responsible for tarnishing the image of a noble man at the best of fake complaints… it’s shameful. NAB chairman Javed Iqbal must look into this and do the needful to fix the black sheep in his organization. Pak Destiny

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