ISLAMABAD: Former Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief Aftab Sultan was on Thursday appointed as chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the country’s premier white-collar crime investigation agency.

The decision to appoint Mr Sultan was taken by the federal cabinet at its meeting presided over by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

“Federal cabinet has given approval for the appointment of Aftab Sultan as NAB chairman,” said a press release issued by the Prime Minister Office. It said the tenure of the NAB chairman has been fixed for three years and it is non-extendable.

The NAB chairman is appointed through consultation between the leader of house (prime minister) and the leader of opposition in the National Assembly.

NAB was established by former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf in 1999.

Mr Sultan is a retired officer of the Police Service of Pakistan and he has served in key positions during both the previous governments of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

Mr Sultan is a law graduate from Punjab University. He later completed LLM from the University of Cambridge. In 2002, as regional police officer in Sargodha, Mr Sultan refused to assist the administration during the referendum called by the then chief executive, retired Gen Pervez Musharraf. He paid for his defiance when he was made OSD.

He prepared a 5,000-page report on the directives of the Supreme Court as the additional inspector general of police about the famous Bank of Punjab case. The SC had appointed Mr Sultan as the investigation officer after expressing dissatisfaction over the investigation conducted by NAB.

Mr Sultan retired as IB chief on April 3, 2018 after serving it since June 7, 2013. He served two governments each of the PPP and PML-N under four prime ministers — Yousuf Raza Gilani, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2022