ISLAMABAD, April 29: As the war of words between the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) turns shrill after the Supreme Court order against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) could turn out to be a new battleground in the fight between the executive and judiciary.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly is meeting this week after a six-month hiatus. It is expected that the committee will call the Supreme Court Registrar, Dr Faqir Hussain, to scrutinise the apex court’s accounts.
Talking to Dawn, the newly elected chairman of the PAC, Nadeem Afzal Gondal, said that an appearance by the SC registrar was long overdue. Principal Accounting Officers (PAOs) of all other government departments are expected to present their accounts for a mandatory regularisation of expenditures in their departments.
However, Mr Gondal was quick to clarify that the scrutiny “has nothing to do with the SC contempt decision against Prime Minister Gilani”. The PAC has nothing to do with the case, since the government had decided to submit an appeal against the decision. “This is a totally separate issue,” he insisted.
Mr Gondal, who was unanimously elected as the new PAC chairman last week, after Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan’s resignation, said he was meeting the auditor-general on Monday to set an agenda for the committee meeting scheduled for this week.
“We will decide when the SC registrar should be called before the committee,” Mr Gondal said.
“Under the Constitution, PAOs of relevant departments — where public money is used — are supposed to come before the PAC.
We will use this right, and ask the SC registrar to appear before the committee,” said Mr Gondal, who is also known for his loyalty towards his party — the PPP.
Moreover, Mr Gondal continued, the former chairman of the PAC, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, had also written letters to the SC registrar calling for his appearance before the committee. According to Mr Gondal, the committee would merely be following up on an already existing decision, made under the former chairman of the PAC.
But according to observers, the PAC proceedings will not remain as peaceful as they used to be in the past, since the ruling party has decided to fall back on its majority in parliament against the SC and the opposition PML-N.
At a press conference on Saturday, Federal Minister for Law, Senator Farooq H Naek clearly indicated that parliament would pitch itself against the judiciary, when he said that the government would bring a privilege motion against the SC registrar for forwarding the court order passed against the prime minister to the Speaker of the National Assembly for necessary action.
According to the law minister, the registrar does not have the mandate to direct the speaker to take any such action.
This is not the first time that the issue of the SC registrar appearing before the PAC has come up. During a PAC meeting held on April 9, 2010, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had said that the Supreme Court must be accountable to the parliamentary committee like all other government ministries and departments.
In the same committee, Chaudhry Nisar – who is leader of opposition in the National Assembly – said that he had written a letter to the SC registrar to this effect. He also said that, if the need arose, he would write another letter to make sure that the court’s registrar participated in committee meetings aimed at reviewing the judicial body’s audit objections. But since then, Chaudhry Nisar seems to have dropped the idea of taking up this issue again.
The registrar has thus far refused to appear before the PAC, arguing that the Supreme Court does not fall under the PAC’s ambit.
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