MULTAN: A deputy director of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Multan, has allegedly been flouting the orders of the competent authority regarding leaving the charge of his office despite passage of more than a month, when he was transferred to the bureau’s Sukkur office, Dawn has learnt.

According to a notification issued on August 4 by Deputy Director (Personal Management-V) Muhammad Zeeshan Haider, which states that “the competent authority has approved posting/trassnfer of Syed Wajihul Hassan, Deputy Director (BS-18) from NAB (Multan) to NAB (Sukkur) with immediate effect and until further order”.

Sources said that Mr Hassan, who also was looking after the complaint and coordination cell of NAB’s Multan office had been transferred over multiple complaints received against him, including leaking offical information to the accused persons and lodging complaints through the persons known to him and later on offering “help” to the accused to close the complaints.

They said that during an inquiry it was revealed that a complaint against a former irrigation executive engineer Rana Afzal was closed after a huge amount was allegedly received by Mr Hassan. NAB Chairman retired Justice Javed Iqbal, on being informed of it, ordered an inquiry into the matter, that was underway, the sources said.

Similarly, Multan Accountability Court Judge Safdar Iqbal wrote a letter to the NAB chairman on August 27, stating that he had received a complaint from Mr Nasarullah, a court staffer (Ahlmad), through the court registrar on August 17, according to which Mr Hassan misbehaved with the complainant.

He also attached a report with the letter, sent to him by the registrar, according to which Mr Hassan demanded the original reference ‘the state vs Tallat Mehmood Qureshi etc’ from the Ahlmad allegedly to detach some pages from it. However, the Ahlmad declined his unlawful request and asked Mr Hasssan to get permission from the court in this regard, or bring the matter into the notice of the registrar.

He stated that over the refusal, Mr Hassan flared up and threatened the court official of dire consequences and used filthy language against him.

He said, previously on August 15, the same officer (Mr Hassan) asked the Ahlmad to provide him the copies of files pertaining to the cases of PHATA (Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency), state vs Abdul Jabbar Shah etc and state vs Rana Muhammad Afzal etc. However, the Ahlmad asked him to apply for the purpose through proper channel on the prescribed form, over which he (Mr Hassan) allegedly misbehaved with the officials and used derogatory language against them.

“It has also been observed that said officer of NAB often visits the court despite the fact that neither he is an investigation officer of any reference pending adjudication in this court, nor he is a prosecutor. He harasses the court staff, uses derogatory language against the court and officers. His such acts are unlawful intervention in day to day affairs of the office of court. It is submitted that misconduct of Mr Hassan be communicated to chairman NAB and he may be restrained from entering the courts premises except in compliance with court order and execution of summons and warrants. It is also submitted that the city police officer, Multan, may be directed to enhance the security of court premises to keep safe the life of persons and [court] record,” he stated.

NAB Multan Spokesman Qaisar Mehmood said that Mr Hassan had submitted a representation to the human resource director general (DG) and will be relieved of his charge if his representation was rejected by the competent authority.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2020