KARACHI, Oct 28: Both the Ehtesab Act of 1997 and the NAB Ordinance that replaced it are invalid inasmuch as they are patently discriminatory and also provide for retrospective criminal liability, former PPP senator Asif Ali Zardari’s counsel submitted before a three-member bench of Sindh High Court.

The bench, comprising Justices S. Ahmed Sarwana, Zahid Kurban Alavi and Shabbir Ahmed, adjourned the hearing of Asif’s petition, pending since 1998, to Nov 4 for arguments by Deputy Attorney-General Syed Zaki Mohammad and NAB deputy prosecutor- general Anwar Tariq. The petition was earlier heard by two benches that broke up due to elevation or retirement of its members.

Concluding his extensive submissions on the repugnance of the two accountability laws to constitutional provisions, Advocate K.M. Nadeem said they were directly hit by the bar on retrospective punishment contained in Article 12.

The two laws also enhanced punishment with retrospective effect. They also violated the Islamic injunctions prohibiting punishment for offences which were not culpable at the time of their commission. No new offence can be created with retrospective effect and no punishment can be enhanced retrospectively.

The two laws, the counsel contended, were also violative of Article 25 of the Constitution as they were not only capable of being misused but were discriminatory on the face of it.

They have actually been used selectively by the two successive regimes which promulgated them, he claimed. The first Ehtesab ordinance, he recalled, provided for accountability from 1985. The cut-off date was arbitrarily extended to 1990 to exclude a crucial 5-year period.

The latest position, the counsel pointed out, is that if a person committed the offence of corruption or corrupt practices on or before Nov 5, 1990, he could not be proceeded against under the law of accountability. However, if he committed the same set of offences on or after Nov 6, 1990, he could be investigated and prosecuted.