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ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan announced on Tuesday to challenge amendments to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) law in Supreme Court (SC) this week, calling for throwing rulers in jail for ‘shamelessly’ passing such law.
Addressing a presser, the PTI Chairman strongly criticized the NAB amendments claiming the changes in the law will pave the way for open corruption in the country as the powerful people will not fear punishment from now onward.
“These rulers should be put in jail for their shamelessness. No one could think of passing such laws as this government did,” he said, adding that the party would challenge the amendment in the Supreme Court this week.
Last month, the government passed the National Accountability (Amendment) Bill, 2022, in the National Assembly and the Senate, but President Arif Alvi returned the bill unsigned. Later, on June 9, the government passed the law in the joint sitting of the parliament. However, President Arif Alvi a day earlier rejected the bill amending the NAB Ordinance due to the “flaws in its implementation”. As a result, the bills will automatically become law within 10 days.
Expanding on the NAB amendment bill, Khan said the leaders of the two big political parties, PPP and PML-N would be saved after the changes — the government amended section 14 of the law, which now states that a person will only be held accountable for the “money left in the fake accounts only when a person is arrested.
The PTI chairman said under the current tax laws, a person has to provide the trail of his wealth as the onus lies on them, not the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). But after the NAB law amendments, the watchdog will have to prove whether a person accumulated wealth illicitly — as the government has shifted the burden from the person to the watchdog.
“If I am a public office holder earning an income of Rs50, then I will have to explain why I have assets worth Rs100 and where I got the extra Rs50 from. But now, they have reversed the role and the NAB will have to explain how a public office holder acquired extra assets,” he added.
The second change, Khan said, was made to the assets beyond means — section 9 — of the NAB law, which will provide relief to “important government leaders”. According to the former premier Maryam Nawaz, Asif Zardari and Shehbaz Sharif would benefit hugely from the changes. He said a whopping Rs11,000 billion of public money would be ‘swallowed’ after changes in the laws, reiterating that the countries with discriminatory laws for the poor and the rich face devastation.
Furthermore, he claimed that the amendments to section 21 have now made the information on foreign assets inadmissible — meaning that PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz will get “clean chits” in Avenfield Fileds case.
He recalled that PML-N’s Khurram Dastgir revealed the true intention of the incumbent government which was to only get rid of corruption cases.
He said the Pervez Musharraf gave the first NRO to the current rulers and their corruption cases were pardoned and termed the recent changes in the NAB laws as ‘NRO-2’.
PTI chairman said the developing countries do not have adequate resources to trace the ill-gotten wealth stashed in developed countries while adding that the developed countries also facilitate it.
He warned that Pakistan would become Sri Lanka if the current government stayed for a while. He termed the amendments are a ‘bigger crime’ than ‘bombarding’ Pakistan.
“History will not forgive the local abettors of the US-backed conspiracy which resulted in the imposition of current rulers on Pakistan,” Khan concluded.