LAHORE, June 21: The Supreme Court has asked the government to appoint the chairman and prosecutor general of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) within a month and declared that the exercise of the powers of chairman by the deputy chairman is illegal.

However, it did not issue a restraining order against the deputy chairman to avert an instant collapse of the institution.

The orders were issued by a three-judge bench which disposed of a constitutional petition against the appointment of Javed Zia Qazi as Deputy Chairman and to restrain him from exercising the powers of the chairman. The petition was filed by Al Jehad Trust and others.

The bench comprising Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa had reserved the judgment after hearing the petition in Islamabad.

Justice Khosa announced the judgment on Tuesday at the court’s Lahore registry.

It said if the government failed to fill the vacancies of NAB chairman and prosecutor general within a month, the bureau would practically cease to function under the National Accountability Ordinance of 1999 and the government would only have itself to blame for that.

It said the deputy chairman had no independent duties or functions and his only job was to assist the chairman. The chairman may delegate any of his powers to and authorise performance of any of his functions by an officer of the bureau, including the deputy chairman, as he may deem fit and proper for carrying out the purposes of the ordinance.

The judgment said it had been conceded before the court that the office of NAB chairman had been vacant for several months and, thus, the job of the deputy chairman to assist the chairman and carry out functions assigned by him appeared to be non-existent.

Advocate Wasim Sajjad argued on behalf of the respondent (deputy chairman) that delegation of powers continued because a constitutional or statutory office continued to exist even if there was no incumbent holding that office for the time being.

The bench observed that when the office of the chairman was vacant there was nobody in that office to be assisted by the deputy chairman and or to direct him to carry out any particular function.

It said in the absence of the chairman, the deputy chairman had no job of his own to perform within the purview of Section 7(a) of the ordinance.

“It seems to us to be preposterous and outrageous if in the garb of a statutory delegation of some of his powers by a chairman, National Accountability Bureau, in favour of a deputy chairman, the deputy chairman may be permitted to keep on exercising the powers of the chairman for a protracted and indefinite period of time.’’