LAHORE, Oct 28: Regaining the control of its two important wings on Tuesday, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has become ‘all powerful’ once again.
The FIA’s anti-crime and economic wings were transferred to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) along with their sanctioned posts four years ago.
Officials told Dawn that the interior ministry had notified the transfer of these wings back to the FIA. As many as 164 officials of the agency whose services were placed at the disposal of the NAB would rejoin their parent department. Besides, around 600 sanctioned posts and cases of the wings transferred to the bureau also have been returned to the agency.
The decision came six months after the announcement by Advisor on Interior Rehman Malik that the government had been considering the proposal to strengthen the FIA. The move is an indication that the NAB is likely to be wound up or replaced by a new setup.
Under the notification, the section (6) clauses 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 165-A, of the Prevention and Corruption Act and sections 168, 169 and 409 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) have again been made part of the FIA Act 1974.
The clauses deal with “the offences like public servant taking gratification, taking bribe\gratification to influence public servant, punishment for abetment by public servant, public servant unlawfully engaged in a trade and criminal breach of trust by public servant, or banker or merchant or agent”.
The two wings were merged with the NAB in August 2004 on the federal cabinet’s direction with a view to avoiding ‘overlapping’ of their functions. About 5,000 inquiries and cases of the anti-crime and economic-crime wings with 33 per cent and 100 per cent staff, respectively, were transferred to the bureau.
A source informed Dawn that since the transfer of the wings to the NAB, the status of most transferred cases remained unchanged. Most of the transferred cases and inquiries, especially low profile, remained pending as the bureau was more interested in high-profile ones,” he said, and added that the bureau also had closed some ‘important’ inquiries.
“During the last four years or so the bureau would discourage the victims of frauds involving small amounts,” he said and maintained that the transfer of the wings to the NAB had also ‘complicated the legal proceeding’ against the accused in the transferred cases as there was no concept of FIR in the bureau.
A permission to arrest an accused had to be taken from the NAB chief, he said.
The source said the anti-crime and economic-crime wings would be functional within two weeks and re-open inquiries and cases which were never initiated by the accountability bureau besides receiving the new ones.
He proposed that the FIA higher-ups should now appoint the staff in these wings, especially those having expertise in banking crimes.