ISLAMABAD: The authority of the chairman of the National Account­ability Bureau (NAB) to approve voluntary return of ill-gotten money by a wrongdoer under the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999 will come under judicial scrutiny as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Anwar Zaheer Jamali has taken suo motu notice of the issue and fixed the matter for a hearing in the last week of this month.

While fixing the matter before a bench on Thursday, the court asked Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf Ali, NAB Chairman Chaudhry Qam­ar Zaman and Prosecutor Gene­ral Waqas Qadeer Dar to assist it in determining certain principles of the powers of the NAB chief.

This is not the first time that the term ‘voluntary return’ has been mentioned by the apex court. Earlier former chief justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, in an order issued by him on July 22, 2015 as the senior judge, had asked NAB in the mega scandal case to provide a breakdown of the amount of Rs262 billion claimed to have been recovered by the bureau from 2008 to 2015 on the basis of voluntary return or plea bargain.

The latest suo motu notice was taken by the Supreme Court on a note of its registrar forwarded to the chief justice, in which he mentioned the Sept 2 observations made by Justice Amir Hani Muslim while heading a two-judge bench in Karachi hearing an appeal filed by NAB.

He had deplored the powers of the NAB chairman under Section 25(a) of the NAO since through its use the accu­sed went scot-free without any stigma after voluntary return of embezzled money.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2016