LAHORE, Feb 22: Two prominent lawyers, approached by the Punjab NAB for the post of Lahore deputy prosecutor general (DPG), have rejected the offer because of the recent NAB decision to debar future DPGs from doing private practice.

The Punjab NAB feels that it needs “full-time prosecutors” in order to handle the workload after the merger of FIA’s crime and economic wings with it. Earlier, Punjab DPGs were allowed to continue their private practice parallel to their NAB engagements.

It is also pertinent to mention here that neither the central nor any provincial organization of the NAB has so far implemented the decision. “The NAB authorities are themselves not sure as to what should they do in view of the fact that no competent lawyer would ever like to quit his private practice for induction into the NAB,” one of the two candidates approached by the NAB for the said post told Dawn on Friday.

The lawyers so far contacted by the NAB for filling the vacancy are Qamaruz Zaman, son of former Punjab advocate-general M. B. Zaman, and Raza Farooq, son of former attorney-general Chaudhry Farooq. While Mr Farooq has flatly refused to accept the offer, Mr Zaman has said that he would accept the offer only if he is allowed to continue his private practice. “I have told the NAB that I would be available only for the appellate work since I cannot quit my practice,” Mr Zaman told this reporter. However, he said, the negotiations with the NAB were on and nothing had been finalised as yet. The office of DPG has been lying vacant since the resignation of Mr Shaukat Javed Malik on Jan 31.

It has been learnt that DPGs currently working in Peshawar, Quetta, Karachi, and Rawalpindi, and the additional DPGs pleading NAB cases in accountability courts are exempted from the new condition.

Sources expressed their inability to comment on the possibility of withdrawal of this condition following an unsuccessful three-week hunt for the new Lahore DPG. However, they acknowledged that the new condition might have to be relaxed by the NAB for hiring a competent lawyer.

The NAB authorities in Islamabad are also working on a proposal to appoint DPGs in all five stations on a three-year contract that would bind them not to do private practice.

The current NAB prosecutor-general has already been hired on a three-year contract, which the authorities want to introduce for DPGs as well. Additional DPGs would also be hired on the same pattern later on and debarred from doing private legal practice, the sources disclosed.