ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Chairman Justice ® Javed Iqbal chaired a high-level meeting and reviewed the progress on 179 mega corruption cases.
The meeting was held at the NAB headquarters and attended by NAB’s operation and prosecution divisions and senior officers. DGs of all regional bureaus of NAB participated through video link in the meeting. The meeting was told that the corruption references in 105 mega corruption cases out of a total of 179 have been filed in different accountability courts which are under trial. It was also informed that the 14 cases were at inquiry stage and 19 mega corruption cases were at investigation stage so far and 40 mega corruption cases have been disposed of as per law. Chairman NAB said that taking mega corruption cases to logical conclusion was the top priority of NAB. He said the bureau gives preference to mega corruption cases and cases of lesser amount are being sent to provincial anti-corruption establishments.
He said that NAB has arrested 503 accused persons in last one year besides filing 440 corruption references cases in different accountability courts. He said no other agency has filed so many cases in one year time. He said that currently 1206 NAB’s corruption references of Rs 900 billion corruption are under trial in different accountability courts throughout the country.
He said the NAB has decided to file applications in respected Accountability Courts for early hearing of 1206 corruption cases. So that looted money of Rs900 billion should be received from corrupt elements and could be deposited in the national exchequer, he added .
The NAB chairman said the NAB is the only organisation which had approved conducting 1317 complaint verification, 877 inquiries and 227 investigations and prescribed 10 month timeframe for logical conclusion of white collar corruption cases was minimum in the world and no other anti-corruption organisation has fixed such timeframe for concluding white collar cases to its logical conclusion. He said the NAB has established its own state of the art forensic science lab which helps in getting concrete evidence against cases with the help of fingerprints, mobile data and document reading, etc.