ISLAMABAD: Sajjad Haider, an FIA officer, Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s sidekick, NRO beneficiary, convicted and dismissed thrice, has not only been reinstated for the fourth time in defiance of the Supreme Court’s order but also appointed to oversee his own and the minister’s corruption record.
Haider has been posted as deputy director in FIA’s anti-corruption unit where the record of corruption references against him and Mr Malik has been kept. Sources told DawnNews that the entire exercise of getting Haider reinstated had been carried out in defiance of the Supreme Court’s judgment on petitions challenging the National Reconciliation Ordinance. The court had also sent packing two other NRO beneficiaries -- OGDC managing director Adnan Khawaja and FIA’s additional DG (economic crime wing) Ahmad Riaz Sheikh.
Sajjad Haider and Riaz Sheikh were also part of a joint operation team which arrested the late Mian Mohammad Sharif, the father of Nawaz Sharif, during Benazir Bhutto’s second term.
Haider was convicted, along with his boss Rehman Malik (then FIA director), and awarded a three-year sentence by the Lahore High Court, only to be pardoned by President Zardari.
A legal expert was of the opinion that the presidential pardon could remit jail sentence, but not conviction.
Haider was also recently caught holding two illegal passports allegedly with the connivance of the passport authorities, but no action was taken against him.
Haider was not available for comments, but his lawyer Shoaib Shaheen said: “If Rehman Malik can hold a public office (his conviction notwithstanding), why can’t Haider?”
The interior ministry and FIA have been advised to keep quiet on the issue. Shahid Hamid, additional secretary (administration) who is said to be ‘gifted’ to the interior minister from NADRA bosses being a pliable subordinate, said: “I have been strictly advised not to speak to the media directly.”
He advised DawnNews to route his questions through media relation officer Nawazish Ali, but the latter did not respond either.
The sources claimed that FIA director (administration) Hussein Asghar had refused to sign posting orders of Sajjad Haider. A well-placed official in the interior ministry confirmed the development and said it had been done by manipulating an order of the Federal Services Tribunal.
Sajjad Haider was first dismissed in Oct 2001 by then interior secretary Tasneem Noorani after he was named a co-accused, with Rehman Malik, in a corruption case relating to misappropriation of funds in unauthorised release of imported yellow cab cars.
But another interior secretary, Kamal Shah, got Haider reinstated illegally and promoted with retrospective effect. Mr Shah was consequently rewarded with extension in service, only to be sacked unceremoniously later on.
Incumbent Interior Secretary Qamar Zaman had dismissed Haider again following the Supreme Court’s order declaring the NRO null and void and reopening the cases of its beneficiaries.
Haider was reinstated again, only to be contested by the interior secretary who, quoting the law ministry’s opinion, said that being NRO beneficiary and a convicted person, he couldn’t be reinstated.
His reinstatement order was reversed by the prime minister’s then principal secretary Nargis Sethi.
Haider then went to the Federal Services Tribunal (FST), praying that his reinstatement order was reversed by the principal secretary, and not by the prime minister himself.
According to Haider’s lawyer, a bench constituted by Farrukh Qayyum (appointed as FST member by the present government after his retirement as federal secretary) accepted his client’s appeal on March 25.
It asked the prime minister to hear Haider’s case afresh.
Soon after the FST order which was precisely on the principal secretary’s letter, Haider was reinstated as deputy director of the FIA’s anti-corruption unit without considering his conviction status and the fact that he was dismissed in 2001 as the agency’s assistant director.
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