The controversial National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has been in news for all the wrong reasons in the recent past. With the recent order passed by the Supreme Court, the little credibility that may have been attached to the anti-graft body has been majorly compromised. On Thursday, the top court of the country accepted the post-arrest bail of PPP senior leader Khursheed Shah. Shah was detained by NAB on September 18, 2019, in an asset beyond means case. The anti-graft body had filed a reference of Rs1.30 billion against Shah, his spouse and two sons. However, after over two-years of investigation, the NAB was unable to produce any evidence in front of the court, owing to which Shah was granted bail.
Whether the PPP leader is corrupt or not is debatable, but it is shocking to realise that in a democratic country like ours, a civilian was kept under custody for over two years without any justification for his arrest. The fact that the NAB was able to get away with this without much conjuncture should raise questions. It is an open secret that the anti-graft body has been used by subsequent governments as a tool to target the opposition. It was after all founded in 1999 during the military dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf to carry out a witch-hunt against the opposition in order to discredit them in front of the people. Since then, politicization, high-handedness and harassment by NAB officials, along with a poor track record of prosecution has only made it more controversial. Add to this the recent amendment to the National Accountability Ordinance, which has only restricted its jurisdiction, which now prohibits the organisation from pursuing white collar crimes. One is then only left to wonder why the government has not done away with NAB altogether.
The credibility of the anti-graft body has come under question time and again, not just by the opposition but the country’s judiciary as well. Shah’s hearing is a case in point. The two-member bench of the SC voiced their annoyance with NAB officials lack of investigation in the PPP leader’s case. “Whether the anti-graft has only one prove that the petitioner had gone abroad forty times,” was questioned by Justice Umer Ata Bandial. This no small claim. The fact is that Shah was held under arrest for over two years without any proof of corruption. There should be no room for such an organization in a democracy. The government must consider terminating NAB.