LAHORE: Punjab Safe Cities Authority Managing Director Ali Amir Malik and Chief Operating Officer Akbar Nasir Khan have filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking review of an order regarding recovery of amount they received above and beyond their regular salaries.

The officers contended through their counsel that they had been lawfully appointed after an approval of the then chief minister, chief secretary, home secretary and planning & development chairman.

They submitted that they had been paid salaries under the law as per the nature of their responsibilities at the authority.

The petitioners plead that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has started issuing notices to them in the light of apex court order for the recovery of excessive salaries. They asked the court to review its order about recovery of their salaries beyond their basic pay scale as government servants.

Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar had taken a suo motu notice of excessive salaries of government servants working in public sector companies and authorities in Punjab. He had ordered the NAB to recover the amount the officers received beyond their basic pay scales.

At a recent hearing, the NAB had told the chief justice that nine government officers, including the petitioners, were not willing to return their salaries, while Rs3.2 million had been deposited to the national exchequer since 45 others had started returning the amount.

The Lahore Development Authority’s former director general Ahad Khan Cheema, former principal secretary to prime minister Fawad Hassan Fawad and former chief executive of Punjab Saaf Pani Company Waseem Ajmal were among those who were not willing to return the excessive salaries. All of them are in jail, facing NAB references.

The chief justice had ordered the NAB to recover salaries from the officers by confiscating their assets if they were not ready to return the amounts voluntarily.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2018