A sudden amendment in National Accountability Bureau (NAB) law, through a presidential ordinance has shaken things up. The amendment not only clips the powers of the NAB but also provides relief to disgruntled businessmen, bureaucrats and public office holders giving them a break from alleged harassment at the hands of the Bureau. This simply means that now NAB, will be able to catch only politicians – most likely unelected people from the opposition parties – and no one else unless it has clear evidence against them. While this amendment is being praised and welcomed mostly by those in the government, there are many others questioning it.

The NAB law amendments, notified last week, give relief to businessmen who have been unhappy but will no longer fall in NAB’s jurisdiction. There is some satisfaction also for bureaucrats who have been hesitant to sign off any major document, including project agreements.

According to the latest amendments, the NAB Ordinance shall no longer apply to matters (of persons and transactions) pertaining to federal or provincial taxation, levies or imposts. After the notification of this amendment “all pending inquiries and investigations shall stand transferred to the respective authorities or departments which administer the relevant laws of taxation, levies or imposts in question; and all trials shall stand transferred from the relevant accountability courts to the criminal courts which deal with offences under the respective laws pertaining to taxation, levies or imposts in question.”

The NAB shall also not be able to take any action against any holder of public office, “unless it is shown that the holder of public office has materially benefitted by gaining an asset or monetary benefit which is disproportionate to his known sources of income, or where such material benefit cannot be reasonably accounted for, and there is evidence to corroborate such material benefit.” No action shall be taken unless there is corroborative evidence of accumulation of any monetary benefit or asset which is disproportionate to the known sources of income or which cannot be reasonably accounted for.

Another interesting part of this amendment protects public office holders in valuation of (their) immovable properties. The amendment reads that for the purposes of assessing as to whether a holder of public office has assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, the value “shall be reckoned either according to the applicable rate prescribed by the District Collector or the Federal Board of Revenue, whichever is higher. No evidence contrary to the latter shall be admissible.” The amendment clearly bars NAB from applying market value rates of those properties of public office holders, which, in most cases are much higher than these two rates.

Shah Khawar, advocate and a former prosecutor for NAB, says these amendments are discriminatory on account of making exceptions to favour certain communities. However, he defends the amendment stopping NAB from taking up cases of misuse of authority until criminal intent is proven. Whatever the intention of the government is in bringing these amendments these are not bad, he opines. Article 248 of the Constitution already protects high-level public office holders from such proceedings. Khawar says the amendments should have been brought through a comprehensive package of changes in the NAB law and should have included curbing discretionary power of NAB chairman to arrest (or not arrest), and seeking 90 days remand, giving power to accountability courts to grant bail etc.

“These were much needed amendments. Now NAB will have to work on proving cases of illegally gotten money rather than just putting accused in confinement,” former attorney general Irfan Qadir, who also served NAB for some time, says, adding, “It is very easy to catch people on the basis of some doubt or accusation but, legally speaking, such cases should be made only when there is not even an iota of doubt against that accused person.” He says presently efforts are made to give benefit of doubt to prosecution rather the accused.

Qadir believes that the changes shall safeguards innocent civil servants and public office holders by stopping NAB from playing to the gallery. “Actually, these changes do not reduce the power of NAB but put the NAB authority within legal restraint,” he maintains. Regarding relief to business community, he says tax laws are already beyond NAB’s jurisdiction and a district level judge is hearing those cases in other courts.

According to 2018 annual performance report of the NAB as many as 60 percent of the cases were related to the misuse of authority, which, as per new amendments, will be out of NAB jurisdiction. Media report suggest that out of 1205 cases till 2019 as many as 926 could not be fixed for hearings in the NAB courts. This means that they remained at a preliminary stage. Besides, as many as 121 cases have been inactive for several years, which means that there have been no proceedings on them.

Political parties in the Opposition allege that these amendments have been made to favour certain people in the government. They say rather than making such amendments, the government should abolish NAB in view of its failure and political victimization. Most of the senior leader of two major opposition parties – Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz and Pakistan Peoples Party – are facing allegation of receiving kickbacks, misuse of authority and having assets beyond declared means. The cases have been under investigation for the past several months.

PML-N’s information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb alleges that the government has brought these amendments to “dry-clean the PTI regime and to halt all inquiries into their mega corruption scandals including the Bus Rapid Transit project of Peshawar.” She has demanded abolition of NAB to end ‘selective accountability’. The leadership of PPP has called these changes “mother of all National Reconciliation Order(s)”. “Latest NAB ordinance is proof that the government agrees with former president Asif Zardari that NAB and our economy cannot thrive together. Instead of such clearly biased efforts the government should work with the Opposition. Do your job and legislate. Abolish NAB, strengthen anti-corruption laws and end this farce,” PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto said in a tweet in reaction to the promulgation of the NAB ordinance.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar, however, defends the changes in the NAB Ordinance saying it was “extremely important to bring in changes to existing laws so that no one is made to suffer wrongly.” One of the aims of bringing in the amendments was to address the clause regarding “misuse of authority,” he says. “NAB’s task is to probe corruption allegations,” he adds.

The government is suggesting that the amendments are meant to safeguard the business community and public office holders – both politicians and bureaucrats – from unnecessary harassment. Many contend, however, that the these safeguarded classes have a reputation for corruption.