Dar Gives NAB a Written Response Instead of Making an Appearance

On Wednesday, a written response was submitted by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) instead of making a physical appearance before the team of investigators. In the letter submitted to NAB, Dar has disclosed the reasons for not making a personal appearance before the graft’s watchdog team for recording his statement and he also provided some documents along with it. It has been confirmed by NAB sources that they have received the response of the finance minister in writing.

Dar has contended in the letter that not only his tax records, but that of his wife had also been examined previously by NAB for the last 22 years i.e. from 1985 to 2007. He said that they had found no evidence of assets other than their declared sources of income and had then ended the inquiry into his finances. The report of this investigation that had been conducted earlier has been submitted to NAB by the finance minister. Apart from that, officials of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan also made an appearance before the NAB.

These officials provided the investigative team with details about the companies owned by Dar’s two sons, wife and daughter-in-law. The relatives of the finance minister own seven companies in total, which are namely CNG Pakistan, Spenser Pharmacy, HDS Securities, Spencer Distribution, Hajveri Hodarba Management Company, Hajveri Holdings and Gulf Insurance Company. A review petition had been filed with the Supreme Court by Dar on August 21st in which he challenged the Panamagate verdict.

He claimed that the ‘spurious’ JIT report could not be used as a basis for filing a reference against him. He said that the direction of the court was beyond the mandate established through the judgment on April 20th. Therefore, he requested the Supreme Court to recall the order they had issued on July 28th. It was also added by the finance minister that the order of the Supreme Court of nominating a judge to supervise the NAB investigation was also against Articles 175 and 203 of the Constitution, which are concerned with the courts’ jurisdiction.

He also pleaded with the Supreme Court to wait for the final order on the review petition he has filed before continuing NAB proceedings against him. He also questioned why five judges had issued the final verdict when the JIT reports had only been heard by three and the other two had never heard the arguments or the objections of the petitioners.