ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Commit­tee on Law and Justice is meeting here on Tuesday to take up the matter regarding appointments of some senior officers in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) allegedly in violation of rules.

The issue had been referred to the committee by Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani on June 14 when PPP’s parliamentary leader Saeed Ghani informed the house that some NAB officials, who had earlier been working on “acting and current charges” in higher scales in violation of rules, had now been re-appointed on an “Own Pay Scale (OPS) basis”.

Mr Ghani alleged that the NAB chairman through a letter on May 20 first “recalled” all those people who had been given “current and acting charges” on higher grades and later on the same day, he issued another notification appointing them again on OPS basis.

Terming it a joke with the law, Mr Ghani said this had been done despite the fact that the law minister had already admitted on the floor of the house that the practice of appointing officers on higher grades for a longer period without seeking prior permission of the government was wrong.

While referring the matter to the committee, the Senate chairman had observed that such a joke with the law was intolerable and incomprehensive.

The law and justice committee is headed by PML-N’s Javed Abbasi. The other prominent members of the committee are Leader of the Opposition in Senate Aitzaz Ahsan, Salim Zia, Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif, Syed Muzaffar Shah, Babar Awan and Farooq Naek.

Mr Ghani had initially raised the matter in March through a question.

The PPP senator had sought the details of the officers in BPS-20 and 21 working in NAB and asked whether “it is a fact that the NAB chairman has the power to post officers in BPS-20 against the post of BPS-21 for three months?”

The then law minister, Pervaiz Rashid, had stated that as per law, the NAB chairman was competent to grant current charge to BS-20 officers against the post of BPS-21 for three months. He had further stated that extension beyond three months in current charge required approval of “next higher authority, i.e. government”.

Mr Ghani then pointed out a couple of officers who had been working as directors general (DGs) on “current charge basis” for more than three months.

The law minister had stated that this had been a practice in many departments and organisations that after expiry of the 90-day period, the heads of the institutions re-appointed the officers for another three-month period with a new date. And by doing this, he said, they did not require the permission of the higher authorities. He said such a practice was common in many institutions where the heads wanted to retain good people on certain positions.

Protesting over this response, Mr Ghani termed it an exploitation of the rules, saying that by similar violations of the rules, daily-wage employees were unable to secure regular jobs. He said that the services of these workers were terminated after 89 days and then they were issued a fresh letter of appointment for another 90 days.

The same thing, he said, was being done in NAB to please some officers who had been working as DGs in Grade-20 and 21.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2016