KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has ruled that recent amendments in the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) have not provided any authority to an accountability court to transfer a matter to any other court.

The ruling came from a division bench of the Sindh High Court.

The two-judge bench was headed by Justice Muhammad Junaid Ghaffar.

The court was hearing the bail petitions of two accused in a corruption reference filed last year.

Their counsel submitted that the reference was pending before the trial court i.e. Accountability Court-VI at Karachi and after recent amendments in the law, the court transferred the case to the district and sessions court (East).

The lawyers argued that the district judge had refused to entertain the reference due to lack of territorial jurisdiction since the matter was pertaining to district judge-south and now he had approached the SHC registrar for an appropriate order.

The bench in its order observed that the letter was sent to the registrar on Sept 14, but apparently no order had been passed by the office.

“This appears to be a very sad state of affairs insofar as the sub-ordinate courts are concerned, and it is not clear as to how the Accountability Court could have exercised any jurisdiction to transfer the case to another Court including the Court of District & Session Judge, East,” it added.

It further noted that the order of the accountability court to transfer the reference had not been impugned by the prosecution.

“However, it is very clear that insofar as the amending Act of 2022 is concerned, it does not provide for any authority upon the Accountability Court to transfer a matter to any other Court,” it observed.

The bench further said that the accountability court ought not to have transferred the matter to another court on its own and instead either it could have been returned to the prosecution or at best guidance could have been sought from the administrative judge of the accountability courts at Karachi or from the SHC registrar.

Allowing the bail, the court stated that it appeared to be a case wherein apparently, the petitioners were in illegal custody and so also unable to seek bail from any court.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2022