KARACHI: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (Retd.)Javed Iqbal on Thursday recalling the message of Quaid-e-Azam againstcorruption and its negative impacts on the society, asked the investigationofficers to perform their duties with full dedication for the eliminationof corruption from the country.
During his visit to NAB Karachi Regional Bureau, he said that father of thenation Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in his address to the ConstituentAssembly of Pakistan had termed bribery and corruption as one of thebiggest curses.
“We must put it down with an iron hand,” according to a statement.
The Chairman NAB said that NAB was established to fight and eradicatecorruption in a holistic and integrated manner.
NAB was striving to accomplish its mission to rid the nation of corruptionand corrupt practices.
He said that NAB’s operational methodology had set three stages forproceeding of cases complaint verification, inquiry and investigation.
Justice (Retd.) Javed Iqbal said that starting with the year 2017, whichcould be called basically a year of re-invigoration of NAB, we have movedwith new zeal and effort.
NAB chief said that NAB had decided to fix time limit for each step ofenforcement 2 months for Complaint Verification, four months for Inquiry &four months for Investigation.
A total of 10 months had been laid down from start – to its logicalconclusion as per law.
He said that NAB preamble emphasized on recovery of looted money if accusedwas willing to return the same.
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He said that once the case had been upgraded to Investigation Stage and ifan accused now makes the request to return ill-gotten money then it wascalled Plea Bargain.
The accused was required to pay the full amount plus Kibor Rate.
His request for Plea Bargain was always submitted in respectiveaccountability court for approval.
Plea Bargain had other implications as it was a deemed conviction.
The accused would be debarred from holding a government office and willlose his job, public office, and a businessman would be debarred fromobtaining loan facility from banks for 10 years.
The Chairman NAB said that since its inception, NAB had adoptedenforcement-based approach in its fight against corruption.
Special focus was therefore being given to awareness and preventionactivities besides to educate the people at large about ill-effects ofcorruption.
Earlier, NAB Chairman also inaugurated Investigation Wing -11 located atBalochistan House.
