ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wants a former judge who sentenced him to life imprisonment in the plane hijacking case in 2000 to be the new accountability czar of the country. Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah, who is the second key consultee in the appointment of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman, is unlikely to put forward any serious grounds to object to his name, Justice Rehmat Hasan Jafferi from Larkana, the political stronghold of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Although, as a judge of the Anti-Terrorism Court in Karachi, Jafferi imposed life term on Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief has always been immensely appreciative of the way he conducted the trial against heavy odds while Pervez Musharraf was ruling the roost. “We should have judges like Jafferi,” the PML-N chief once said, showering praise on him. At the time, Jafferi was under enormous pressure from the military regime to award capital punishment to Nawaz Sharif, but he fearlessly refused to oblige. During the trial, the judge’s certain actions exasperated the army ruler. But at no stage of the trial did he show signs of being coerced and bullied by the masters of the day although strong-arm methods were employed against him to force him to dance to the official tunes. In February this year, President Asif Ali Zardari claimed that he saved Nawaz Sharif from being hanged by Musharraf in 2000. “I had some acquaintance with Jafferi, and when I heard Musharraf was pressuring him into punishing Nawaz Sharif, I advised him to settle the case only on merit. I was successful in convincing Jafferi against announcing capital punishment for him,” the president said. He also stated that he became “friends” with Nawaz Sharif after the latter was imprisoned by Musharraf following the military coup. He said that at the time, Musharraf had been exerting pressure on Jafferi to severely punish the PML-N chief. The second name, respected former senior bureaucrat Khawaja Zaheer, proposed by the prime minister to the opposition leader as the NAB chairman is unlikely to be accepted by Khursheed Shah on the ground that the retired official was too close to the PML-N. The same happened to Khawaja Zaheer when the PML-N recommended him as the caretaker Punjab chief minister. An official told The News that Nawaz Sharif had recommended Khawaja Zaheer’s name on his own, without consulting him in any way. The last time the PPP launched a bitter campaign against him. The position of the NAB chairman fell vacant after the Supreme Court knocked out the incumbent, Admiral (retd) Fasih Bokhari, for having been appointed against the Constitution. The then leader of the opposition, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan (now interior minister), had challenged the nomination arguing that he was not consulted by the prime minister as specified under the Constitution. Since Bokhari’s ouster, the apex court has repeatedly urged the government to bring in his replacement so that the functioning of the main anti-graft agency, NAB, doesn’t suffer further due to the absence of its chairman. Bokhari is the second NAB chief after Justice (retd) Deedar Hussain Shah, who was struck off from the slot. Jafferi, who hails from Bhuttos’ Larkana, was later elevated from the ATC to the Sindh High Court (SHC). Afterwards, he was promoted to the Supreme Court where he also served with distinction. Some time back, Jafferi was appointed as one-man commission by the Supreme Court to inquire into the causes of delay in the completion of 950-megawatt Nandipur and Chichon-Ki-Malian power projects in the Punjab. His findings established that the national exchequer suffered a colossal loss of Rs113 billion due to the negligence of the federal Law Ministry for prolonged dithering on providing necessary approval and completing documents for the execution of the projects. The noose is being tightened by the court around the neck of such elements for the delay in issuance of sovereign guarantee for the projects. The 94-page report said that there was negligence on the part of the executive authorities of the Law Ministry, which delayed the projects.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 07:25:09 +0000
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