Acquitted bureaucrat sues NAB for making fake case

ISLAMABAD: In a rare and daring move, a senior bureaucrat acquitted recently in a NAB reference has filed a case in the Accountability Court, Islamabad, to initiate criminal proceedings against NAB officials for dragging him in a corruption case on fake, frivolous and fraudulent grounds in sheer abuse of the law.

Filed by Arshad Farooq Faheem, who served as secretary law and is a BS-21 officer, the case is said to be the first time in the history of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, that any such case has been filed seeking the accountability of NAB officials for making a false case.

The IHC recently acquitted Faheem in a NAB reference and had observed that the case (made by the Bureau) seems to be an exercise to receive an amount from the pharmaceutical companies without a justiciable reason. Faheem, the-then Chairman Drug Pricing Committee, has been acquitted by the IHC after nine years of sufferings at the hands of NAB, which initiated the inquiry against him in 2013, upgraded it to an investigation in 2015 and filed the reference in 2016. The IHC said in its judgment that there is not an iota of evidence to prosecute the officer.

The officer was arrested and put behind bars for seven months by NAB. He remained suspended till 2018. A reference was filed in June 2016 but till the officer’s acquittal by the IHC in 2022, NAB did not allow the trial to be commenced and even the charges against him could not be framed.

In his case filed against NAB officials, he prayed that they should be punished for framing a case against him unlawfully, without any legal and warranted jurisdiction based on frivolous accusations, by twisting and distorting ground realities and filing false, fabricated, and concocted reference.

He said that NAB also asserted undue pressure upon the pharmaceutical companies to enter into a plea bargain, and constantly misled the trial court, The honourable Sindh and Islamabad courts, as well as the honourable Supreme Court.

He recalled that the DPC of DRAP held its fifth and sixth meetings on October 9, 2012, and January 21, 2013, respectively. In the meetings, different items on the agenda, as per the working paper prepared by the Pricing Directorate of DRAP came under deliberations. Accordingly, consensus recommendations were made by the DPC which were duly approved by the competent authority/federal government and notified as an SRO after authentication from the Law & Justice Division.

NAB however, started questioning the veracity of the proceedings of these two meetings of the DPC on a frivolous complaint by a so-called social activist. He said that in-spite of the fact that the federal government did clarify to NAB that the fixing of pricing of drugs is a routine regulatory function of DRAP, the Bureau still proceeded.

NAB, he said, has based its case on the investigation report of a so-called technical expert from DRAP without any evidence of corruption or corrupt practices on the part of any member of the DPC including the petitioner. Therefore, their intervention in this case under the NAO, 1999 was without any legal basis and authority.

He insisted that NAB filed a false and fabricated investigation report before the honourable courts with malafide intentions and ulterior motives to extract money from the pharmaceutical companies through misrepresentation of facts, the application of wrong criteria, misinterpretation of the law/rules made beyond their jurisdiction.

Faheem said that these illegal actions of NAB were done with the sheer abuse of the laws beyond their authority, with malafide intentions and ulterior motives to deceive the honourable courts against the accused.

Faheem asserted that in his case, the intervention of NAB was without any jurisdiction, unlawful and based on false, fabricated and fraudulent reports/evidence. The same has no value in the law and was done with mala fide intentions and ulterior motives to deceive the courts against the accused officers/officials and beneficiary companies.