LAHORE,(MILLAT+APP)- Chairman National Accountability Bureau
(NAB) Qamar Zaman Chaudhry has said that NAB is bound to
exercise plea bargain on the application by any convict,
following the relevent law.
He was addressing a meeting with senior editors and reporters
organised by Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE)
at a local hotel on Monday.CPNE president Zia Shahid,DG NAB Lahore Syed Burhan Ali, senior journalists Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami,Arif Nizami,Salman
Ghani,Zulfiqar Rahat,Adeeb Jawdani,Zulfiqar Rahat,Amjad
Iqbal and others were present on the occasion.
Chairman NAB said that almost every country of the world has
plea bargain law which exists in Pakistan as well and NAB has
recovered an amount of Rs 285 billion during its last 16 years
while exercising this voluntary return law.
He said the NAB also handed over a handsome amount to
victims of various scams including Double Shah scam,
cooperatives scams and many housing scams.However,he added that plea bargain is not a practice to give a “free hand” to any one but a
government official has to get dismissal,while elected member of a
public office gets ineligible for ten years,and a businessman has
to lose facility he misused.
Qamar Zaman said NAB advertises in newspapers to seek
claims by the victims on any scam.Then it (NAB) adds interest (as per
State Bank policy) and finally prepares plea bargain on the
total amount claimed by the victims while adding the interest.
He said that no case is investigated by a single officer
,rather a four-member Combined Investigation Team (CIT) of NAB
examines the matter and on the findings of the CIT the NAB proceeds
for further action.
“Most of the people have a perception that NAB gets a
share through plea bargain which is completely wrong”, he said
and added that NAB deposits the total amount into national treasury or
distributes among the affectees”, he clarified.
To a question about Baluchistan Finance Department
corruption case, Qamar Zaman said that it was not Rs 40 billion
but only 2.2 billion.The provincial government also commended NAB performance and the total amount recovered through plea bargain will be given to the provincial government.
He urged the CPNE president to form an investigation
committee to check as to who made up this wrong figure
while reporting this case.He said the controversy would end this way.
He said that NAB was taking action against all the
political parties without any discrimination,adding that NAB
chairman has the authority of taking sou-moto,however,
in order to protect the honour of any citizen NAB only takes action after
receiving sound proof.
To another question,he said NAB suffered during the previous government’s tenure as four chairmen were changed during five years.
However,he assured that the situation improved under the present government and the department was working with commitment.