National Accountability Bureau Chairman Aftab Sultan tendered his resignation as the anti-graft watchdog chair. According to media reports, Mr Sultan said he had presented his resignation to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during a meeting two days ago. He claimed the premier asked him to withdraw the resignation but he refused. He said his resignation had been subsequently accepted. “I was being told to do the thing that is unacceptable to me,” he said, adding: “I always worked on merit in my professional life”. The outgoing NAB chief said it was not possible for him to forcefully make or end corruption cases against anyone. In July last, the federal cabinet approved his appointment as head of the anti- graft watchdog.

He had replaced former NAB chief retired Justice Javed Iqbal. It was worth mentioned here that the outgoing NAB chairman is a law graduate from the Punjab University, who later obtained LLM from the University of Cambridge and also did MSc in jurisprudence/legal studies from the University of Edinburgh. He is also known for refusing to assist the administration as the regional police officer in Sargodha during the referendum called by the late Gen Parvez Musharraf in 2002. He was later made OSD for refusing the orders. He also investigated the Bank of Punjab case in line with the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan that had rejected the NAB’s probe report in the case.

Mr Sultan had retired as the Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief on April 3, 2018 after serving since June 7, 2013. He also prepared a 5,000-page report on the directives of the Supreme Court as additional inspector general of police about the famous Bank of Punjab case. The SC had appointed Sultan as the investigation officer after expressing dissatisfaction over the investigations conducted by NAB. He served two governments each of the PPP and the PML-N under four prime ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP