ISLAMABAD: The government has planned to amend the National Accountability Ordinance — the law that governs the National Account­ability Bureau (NAB) — to empower accountability courts to decide the fate of over 200 undecided, dormant references.

Federal Minister for Law and Justice Azam Nazeer Tarar at a press conference on Friday disclosed that the government had proposed amendments to sections 4 and 5 of the ordinance to empower accountability courts to determine the fate and forum for those references whose jurisdiction have been ousted from the ambit of NAB through a previous amendment to the accountability laws.

While the Supreme Court has yet to decide the fate of the amendment made to the ordinance last year, the law minister said the government was all set to promulgate an ordinance to cover certain deficiencies in the last year’s amendments.

The minister said there had been rumours about the future of the references returned by accountability courts after the last year’s amendments. He said those references were not quashed and the courts had only returned them to NAB for lack of jurisdiction.

Those references included ones in which PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari was nominated as an accused person.

Law minister says incumbent administration intends to empower accountability courts

Mr Tarar said the NAB chairperson would be authorised to send the inquiries to relevant institutions.

However, the chairperson would not exercise power to close an investigation or pending reference without the approval of the accountability court.

The law minister differentiated the acquittal of the PML-N leadership — including Maryam Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif, Ahsan Iqbal and others — with those returned by accountability courts for want of jurisdiction, saying the party leadership faced trial under the previous law and did not avail any concession provided in the amendment introduced in 2022.

‘Political victimisation’

Mr Tarar accused the PTI government of using NAB for political victimisation, insisting that former prime minister Imran Khan had introduced three ordinances during his tenure.

Responding to another question,

Mr Tarar said the federal cabinet had principally decided to withdraw the curative petition filed by the previous PTI government against dismissal of a reference against Justice Qazi Faez Isa.

In reply to another question, he said that once it is compiled the Toshakhana record since 2000 would be made public on a website or in print form without discrimination, under Article 19 of the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2023