ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar assured on Thursday the government officers to whom notices were issued for not disclosing information about their or their spouses’ foreign nationality that the exercise was not intended to insult or humiliate them.

“The only purpose behind the exercise is to collect data so that we may learn how many of our government officers [holding dual nationality] are working in sensitive offices, etc,” he observed while hearing a suo motu case initiated to find out the names of civil servants of grade 17 to 22 bearing two nationalities.

Instead of Courtroom No 1 the hearing was held in the auditorium of the Supreme Court because a large number of people had turned up for the hearing. However, after the hearing many of the bureaucrats lamented that the case had damaged their reputation among the eyes of the people.

At the last hearing the court had issued notices to 147 government officers of grade 17 and above, as well as their departments, for not disclosing that they bore foreign nationality. Notices were also issued to another 291 officers for not disclosing information about foreign nationality of their spouses.

On Thursday, Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Bashir Memon, conceded that errors had been committed in the data compiled earlier when it was accepted that 78 officers out of 147 had disclosed details about their dual nationality before joining government service. It was the fault of their respective departments providing wrong data to the apex court.

Similarly, another 44 officers had said they were never inquired about their dual nationality besides a few off­icers who said they were born in Britain and were called to serve in Pakistan.

Likewise, some officers claim­ed they were contractual employees and were not supposed to disclose their foreign nationality.

Some doctors of Irish nationality from Lahore told the court that they had been requested to come to Pakistan to serve.

The chief justice asked the officers not to get alarmed because no adverse decision against them was intended. He extended for another month the deadline to complete the work of collecting information about the government officers with dual nationality.

The court, however, observed that adverse action could be taken against those who failed to come forward to disclose their true identity.

Earlier, the court was told that the total strength of government officers in the country was 172,000 of which only 616 officers had volunteered to disclose information about their foreign nationality, whereas 147 of them had chosen not to reveal their own nationality and 291 the nationality of their spouses.

The court had also ordered placing of an advertisement in two dailies on government expense so that more information about dual nationality of civil servants and their spouses could be collected.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2018