ISLAMABAD: In a significant victory for the government, the Supreme Court on Friday accepted the intra-court appeals against the September 15, 2023, ruling that had annulled amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO).
A five-member bench, led by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faiz Isa and including Justices Aminuddin, Jamal Khan Mandukhel, Athar Minallah, and Hasan Azhar Rizvi, delivered a unanimous 5-0 decision.
The court ruled in favor of the federal and provincial governments, stating that Imran Khan, the founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), failed to prove that the amendments to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) laws were unconstitutional.
The decision followed the June 6 hearings on appeals challenging the September 15 ruling by former CJP Umar Ata Bandial. These appeals made both NAB and Imran Khan respondents.
The September 15 judgment had struck down key amendments made to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) of 1999, particularly those introduced through the National Accountability (Second Amendment) Act, 2022. This act, passed during the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)-led government in April 2022, altered sections 2, 4, 5, 6, 25, and 26 of the NAB laws. Nine out of the ten amendments were declared “null and void” by the Bandial-led bench after Khan’s petition in June 2022.
Restoration of Graft Cases
In a 2-1 verdict delivered in September 2023, a three-member bench led by then-CJP Bandial upheld Imran Khan’s challenge to the NAB amendments made under the previous PDM government. This ruling restored multiple corruption cases that had been closed following the amendments, particularly those involving sums below Rs500 million. It ordered NAB to transfer all related case files back to the courts within seven days.
Larger Bench and Intra-Court Appeals
Following this, the federal government submitted an intra-court appeal in October 2023, arguing that the September 15 decision was procedurally flawed. The Supreme Court subsequently formed a larger five-member bench under CJP Isa on May 10, 2024, to review the appeal. The court allowed jailed ex-PM Imran Khan to attend the hearings via video link.
In November 2023, the court temporarily halted accountability courts from delivering final verdicts in reopened cases due to the nullification of the NAB amendments.
NAB Amendments
The 2022 amendments to the NAB laws restricted investigations into graft cases involving less than Rs500 million and limited the anti-corruption watchdog’s powers in cases where fewer than 100 victims were involved. They also reduced the detention period for the accused from 30 days to 14 and exempted tax-related matters and regulatory bodies from NAB’s jurisdiction.
Additionally, the term of the NAB chairman and prosecutor general was reduced from four to three years, while accountability court judges were also assigned a three-year term, with a mandate to resolve cases within a year.
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