ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial on Wednesday observed that the amendments made to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Act in July were suspicious.
The CJP made the remarks during the hearing of NAB’s appeal challenging the order to inform Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)’s Javed Latif about his arrest.
During the proceedings, the anti-graft watchdog’s prosecutor Rizwan Sati argued that notifying the accused before arrest is against the law. To this, CJP Bandial maintained that Latif’s case was in the inquiry stage and that an accused could not be arrested during this stage.
In his argument, the NAB prosecutor said that following the amendment made to the accountability law on July 3, “arrests could now be made during the inquiry phase”.
The chief justice observed that NAB law amendments are “suspicious” and conflict with court decisions.
“How can someone being summoned for questioning be sent to jail?” questioned the CJP, adding that the NAB Act was draconian until 2001. He remarked that amendments in the law to reduce the period of remands and grant bail were good.
In his remarks, Justice Athar Minallah said that the NAB law should only be interpreted according to both the court decisions and the Constitution.
Subsequently, the apex court rejected NAB’s appeal challenging the requirement of notifying the accused before arrest.
