Aftab Sultan resigns as NAB chairman

ISLAMABAD: Aftab Sultan on Tuesday resigned as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman citing personal reasons, ARY News reported.

Sultan had presented his resignation to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office stated.

“The prime minister appreciated the services of Aftab Sultan and lauded his honesty and uprightness. Upon his insistence, the prime minister reluctantly accepted the resignation of Sultan,” said the PM Office.

Sources revealed that Aftab Sultan resigned from his office after “he was asked to do certain things which were not acceptable to him.”

Sources further disclosed that Sultan had some reservations over National Accountability (Amendment) Act, 2022 which has limited the anti-corruption watchdog’s powers.

Aftab Sultan, former Director General (DG) of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), was appointed as chairman National Accountability Bureau last year in July by the PDM government. He had replaced Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal, who remained NAB chairman for four years and three months.

Sultan belonged to the police service and retired in BPS-22. He remained appointed to the top slots including as intelligence bureau (IB) chief during PPP and PML-N tenures besides also serving as DIG Sargodha during Pervez Musharraf’s period.

A NAB reference was also approved against him and he remained a co-accused with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif over irregularity in buying vehicles in the name of the SAARC conference. The reference also included Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry and they were blamed for causing a loss of Rs1.95 billion to the national exchequer.

However, the reference was approved in 2020 but was never filed against them.

NAB law

In May, the National Assembly approved amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance 1999 in a bid to curtail the powers of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The bill was tabled by Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar who said that multiple amendments were made in the accountability Ordinance to clip the powers exercised by the accountability bureau.

Sharing details of the key amendments, he had said that after fresh amendments, no arrests could be made before completion of the investigation process, and the suspect would have the right to obtain bail. Moreover, 90-day remand period was also abolished.

“90-day remand is for terrorists, and we have now reduced the duration of remand to 14 days,” he said and added that no defamation campaign could be carried out unless the suspect is convicted in the case. The case could not be used for political purposes in the assets beyond means case, Tarar had informed lower house.