ISLAMABAD: Apparently angered by a perceived foot dragging by the National Accountability Bureau in furnishing statistical data repeatedly sought by the court to evaluate its performance, the Supreme Court has summoned the chief of the bureau, Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, for Thursday.

“Considering numerous orders passed by us and also noting that none of these are ever complied with, we have left with no option but to direct the NAB chairman to appear on April 9,” Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja observed on Monday.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice Khawaja is seized with a case about the state of affairs in NAB.

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“We will give you medal and appreciate if the court is convinced that NAB, being a watchdog against corruption, is doing its job devotedly,” the bench said.

The court was particularly not happy over complaints it had been receiving about the treatment meted out to witnesses by NAB officials during the course of investigations.

The court had directed NAB Prosecutor General Waqas Qadeer Dar to furnish quantitative and qualitative statistical data about delinquent officers working in the bureau since 2010 as well as the number of references filed against different accused and their outcome.

Mr Dar appeared before the court on Monday but failed to provide the required information.

In its order, the court recalled that it had been taking up the case almost on a daily basis because it had not received so far a satisfactory response to the questions it had raised. Moreover, it said, despite assurances given by the functionaries, including the prosecutor general, the court had not been furnished what it had been asking for.

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“This is neither a happy state of affairs nor conducive for an organisation functioning as a watchdog to root out corruption from society,” Justice Khawaja regretted.

“It is most unfortunate that reports being sought were not provided with, rather a number of reminders issued by the court office was even not given importance and ignored,” the bench deplored.

The court noted that profuse apologies had been made by the NAB officials and it was assured that those responsible for the lapse would be identified, but it appeared that little progress was made.

In its previous orders, the court had asked NAB to provide a list of complaints received by the bureau, the number of inquiries initiated on the complaints, the progress made so far, the number of corruption references filed in different accountability courts on the basis of these complaints, the number of individuals arrested with dates, the number of cases ended on voluntary return of corruption money or plea bargain, the time consumed in inquiries into complaints, filing of references, detention of the accused, etc, reasons for delays, statistics about wrongdoing or corruption on part of the bureau officials, action taken against the delinquent officers, the persons who have violated the guidelines earlier set by Justice Rehmat Hussain Jaffery when he was a judge of the Sindh High Court as well as the number of accused against whom warrants of arrest were issued but never executed.

These information should be furnished in a consolidated form so that a proper qualitative analysis could be made highlighting the performance of NAB, the court observed.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2015

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