ISLAMABAD, Nov 3 The government has decided to present the National Accountability Commission Bill, 2010, in the National Assembly without addressing the opposition's concerns, according to sources.

The National Assembly's Standing Committee on Law and Justice at a meeting last month had urged the government not to bring the final draft of the bill in the assembly until the PPP and PML-N reached a consensus.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's directives, which he gave to the law ministry on Wednesday to expedite drafting of the bill, unveiled government's intention to get the bill passed without addressing opposition's apprehensions.

During a meeting with Law Minister Babar Awan, Labour Minister Syed Khursheed Shah, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira and Chairperson of National Assembly's committee on law and Justice Begum Naseem Akhtar Chaudhry at the Prime Minister's House, Mr Gilani asked the committee to hold frequent meetings to finalise the bill.

According to a spokesman for the prime minister, Mr Gilani emphasised the need for taking all stakeholders on board before finalising the accountability bill. He said the PPP believed in across-the-board accountability.

The prime minister directed that there should be a clear difference between victimisation and accountability so that people's trust in the process could be restored.

Sources in the law ministry disclosed that the two sides had developed differences on the appointment of chairman and deputy chairman of the National Accountability Bureau.

The PML-N had submitted notes of dissent to the standing committee on some proposed clauses of the accountability commission, including those concerning the appointment of the chairman, duration of cases to be taken up by the commission and immunity proposed for the crimes if committed in 'good faith'.

One key note written by a PML-N member stressed that a serving Supreme Court judge should be made chairman of the proposed accountability commission and the deputy chairman should be a serving high court judge.

The opposition thus rejected the government proposal that any person qualified to be appointed a superior court judge is eligible to hold the offices.

The second dissent note objects to the abridged definition of 'mutual assistance' and international cooperation in dealing with corruption. It demands that the clause as existing in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) law should be retained in the new bill. The third objection relates to applying the law from 1947, and not from 1985 as proposed by the government.

The last note calls for omission of an unusual provision that no proceeding should be carried out against a holder of public office for any work, which had been done in good faith or in pursuance of or in exercise of powers vested in him or believed to be vested in him, or intended to be done at the material time by virtue of that office.