ISLAMABAD: A fresh row appears to be brewing up between the judiciary and the government as National Accountability Bureau’s Prosecutor General Irfan Qadir, whose removal had been ordered by the Supreme Court last week, stated on Monday that he would continue to hold his post till a removal order was issued by the president. The prosecutor general made his decision public five days after an apex court verdict removed him and NAB’s acting chairman Javed Zia Kazi from their offices.
A NAB official said Mr Qadir had relinquished the charge and sent his resignation to the president after the verdict and stopped going to his office. But he astonished his colleagues by attending the office on Monday.
President’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the presidency had not received Mr Qadir’s resignation and “there is no need to seek consent of the president in this regard once the Supreme Court has announced its verdict”.
Talking to Dawn, Mr Qadir gave the impression that he had been regularly going to his office and doing his routine work.
“I would never violate the law which requires the president’s order for my removal.”
He was of the view that the president was the appointing authority and only he could remove him from the office.
Sources in NAB said the prosecutor general had also told his bosses that he could not be removed simply on the orders of the chief justice because under the NAB Ordinance the procedure for his sacking was the same as required for removing a Supreme Court judge. Under the ordinance, a case for removal of the prosecutor general and the chairman is sent, with valid reasons, to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) which sends its decision to the president.
Mr Kazi, Deputy Chairman of NAB who had been acting as the chief of the bureau, has accepted his reversion to his post.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had removed the officials on a petition by Advocate Khwaja Harris who is representing the Bank of Punjab in a loan scam case.
“It is a position admitted even by PG Irfan Qadir that he had once earlier been appointed as PG under Section 8 of the NAB Ordinance of 1999 and that he had held the said office for a full term of three years from December 2003 to December 2006. There was legal bar on his re-appointment to the same office,” the verdict said.
According to sources, President Asif Ali Zardari had not consulted former NAB chairman Nawid Ahsan while appointing Mr Qadir as the prosecutor general, which was a violation of the ordinance.
They said if the president did not order his removal the situation could lead to a clash between the judiciary and the government.
The sources alleged that the purpose of appointing Mr Kazi, a customs officer, as deputy chairman was to take control of the organisation after Mr Ahsan was pushed out.
Former prosecutor general Danishwar Malik was removed on March 31 under a ruling of the apex court issued on Dec 17 last year. He had taken the Swiss money laundering case’s record into his possession in Geneva.
Mr Malik had also pleaded that his case should be referred to the SJC, but he was sacked without meeting the requirement.
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