KARACHI: Former inspector general of Sindh police Ghulam Haider Jamali moved on Tuesday an accountability court challenging its jurisdiction to try him in a corruption reference after promulgation of a new provincial law.

The National Accountability Bureau had fi led a corruption reference against the former IG along with the then AIG (Finance) Fida Hussain Shah and six other police offi cers in March for allegedly making illegal appointments by misusing their authority in Sindh Reserve Police (SRP) Hyderabad causing loss of over Rs50 million to the national exchequer.

The reference was fixed before accountability court-III judge Sher Bano Karim on Tuesday for indictment.

However, the former provincial police officer through his lawyer moved an application and asked the court to stop the proceedings as it had no jurisdiction to hold the trial since the provincial assembly had repealed the applicability of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999, in the province.

The lawyer contended that the Sindh Assembly had passed the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 Sindh Repeal Act, 2017, which had become a law and now the accountability court could not hear the reference against officials of the provincial government.

However, NAB prosecutor Zahid Hussain informed the court that the controversial provincial law had been challenged in the Supreme Court as well as in the Sindh High Court. The court issued a notice to the prosecution on the application for Aug 22 and directed the prosecutor for detailed arguments in the next hearing.

Initially, the Supreme Court had appointed a threemember fact-fi nding committee to identify illegalities in recruitments and later, in the light of the committee’s recommendations, the apex court had referred the matter to NAB to probe the scam.

The reference said that former IG Jamali, then Training DIG Shahab Mazhar Bhalli, then Sindh Reserve Police ADIG Aitezaz Ahmed Goraya, then Finance AIG Syed Fida Hussain Shah, then West SSP retired Captain Ghulam Azfar Mahesar, then District Matiari SP Amjad Ahmed Shaikh, District Kashmore SP Umar Tufail and then District Tharparkar SP Khalid Mustafa Korai were allegedly involved in illegal recruitments of policemen, junior clerks and computer operators in SRP Hyderabad.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2017