ISLAMABAD, April 30: The Supreme Court ordered the Federal Investigation Agency on Monday to probe the alleged misappropriation of billions of rupees in the National Bank’s ‘Staff Welfare Fund’ in the name of ‘achievement award’, but after registering an FIR.

A two-judge bench comprising Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan and Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja had taken up a petition filed by Syed Jehangir, secretary general of NBP’s Trade Union Foundation Karachi. The petition includes the name of the bank’s former president Ali Raza as an accused. The bench directed the FIA to register FIR against 16 bank officials, including the former president, at whom fingers had been pointed and submit fortnightly progress reports on the investigation to the court registrar for perusal of judges in their chambers.

The petition named the federal government through finance secretary and FIA director general and its Sindh director as respondents.

Advocate Hashmat Habib, representing the petitioner, alleged that each of the 16 officials had been given cash awards ranging from Rs35 million to Rs40 million from the welfare fund. Meagre amounts of Rs5,000-10,000 were disbursed among a large number of employees of the bank.

The counsel informed the court that the FIA in its preliminary investigations had put the volume of the scam at Rs2 billion and said that the 16 officials were willing to return the award money voluntarily. But the agency has now taken a U-turn and said in its latest report submitted to the court that the finance ministry and the State Bank of Pakistan had found no criminality in the disbursement of the award among the employees.

Advocate Habib maintained that his client had filed the petition to safeguard the national exchequer against payment of a huge amount of money to attorneys.

Advocate Akram Sheikh, representing at least 13 NBP officers, said 84 per cent of the total amount of the award had been distributed among 12,000 employees of the bank and 16 per cent among his clients.

Those who received 84 per cent of the amount had not been summoned and the petition only focussed on his clients under a policy of pick and choose, the counsel deplored.