LAHORE: The Supreme Court on Friday suspended the rules of Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE), which required it to seek permission from chief minister prior to initiate an inquiry, register a case or arrest an officer of BS-20 or above.

These rules were made during previous rule of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) by then governor on Feb 7, 2014 in exercise of powers under section 6 of the Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment Ordinance 1961. Incumbent Governor of Punjab Chaudhry Sarwar of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf was in the office during his first stint from 2013 to 2015.

ACE Director General had written a letter to Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar stating that all such powers should vest with the office of the director general instead of the chief minister.

Advocates Zafar Iqbal Kalanauri and Safdar Shaheen Pirzada appeared on behalf of the ACE DG on Friday when a two-judge bench took up the matter at the Lahore registry.

The chief justice expressed concern over the rules and observed that inquiries against government officers could not be transparent and independent in the presence of mandatory approval from a political regime.

The chief justice suspended sections 5, 6, 7 and 10 of the Punjab ACE Rules 2014 till further orders and sought a detailed from the advocate general of province.

On another request of the ACE DG, the chief justice directed the registrar of the Lahore High Court to fix hearings of all pending cases against inquiries of ACE for their disposal within six weeks.

The director general has stated that the organisation was stuck up to proceed further in investigation as stay orders had been issued by the high court. He said in most of cases huge loss to state exchequer was involved.

The suspended sections of the ACE rules state that no inquiry or case shall be initiated/dropped or registered respectively against a district coordination officer of a district government, a commissioner of a division, a secretary to the government, a head of an attached department, and any other officer of BPS-20 and above without prior permission in writing of the chief minister. In case of officers in BPS-19 such permission may be accorded by the chief secretary.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2018