ISLAMABAD: The Parliamen­tary Committee on NAB laws which met here on Wednesday failed to decide what accountability laws should be enforced in the country.

The meeting decided that clause by clause voting of the proposed National Accountability Commission (NAC) bill would be done on Monday because Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Jamat-i-Islami (JI) had opposed the bill and demanded that the existing National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Ordinance, 1999, should be kept intact instead of replacing it with NAC bill.

Though the committee met for fourth time in the current month, no progress could be made about accountability laws.

“The committee has now decided to start approving the NAC bill clause by clause through a vote by Monday,” committee chairman Zahid Hamid told reporters after the in-camera meeting.

“Except for two parliamentary parties all other parties have agreed to new accountability laws,” he said.

It was for the second consecutive time that none of Pakistan Peoples Party’s representatives attended the meeting as PPP leader Naveed Qamar and Senator Farooq Naek, who replaced Senator Farhatullah Babar, did not turn up.

The PPP had taken a U-turn in the 15th meeting of the committee when it backed out on its stance that serving generals and judges should also be brought under the purview of NAC.

“I am surprised that none of the PPP leaders attended the second consecutive meeting,” the law minister said.

Others who attended the meeting were Dr Shireen Mazari of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, S. Iqbal Qadri of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Senator Saud Majeed of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N and Naeema Kishwar of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl.

In the 16th meeting, the committee members, including those of the PML-N and PPP, had agreed that generals and judges would not come under purview of the accountability laws.

The JI and PTI want laws governing the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to stay unchanged, fearing that the government is pushing forward a legislation to protect former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family, who are standing trial in many corruption references.

The leaders of political parties also failed to reach a consensus on the procedure of filing a corruption reference against a suspect.

The PTI questioned the retention of the ‘voluntary return’ clause and the proposed provision to reduce the punishment for an offender from a maximum of 14 to a maximum of seven years if the illegal gain is fully recovered.

Under Section 25 of the National Accountability Ordinance, the NAB chairman, with the approval of any accountability court, can order release of a convict found guilty of corruption after he/she enters into a plea bargain or an agreement for returning the misappropriated money to the bureau.

The PTI also objected to a proposed provision that will give the right of bail to an accused who has been in custody for more than a year without his/her trial being concluded.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2017