PHC seeks NAB minutes on closure of Malam Jabba inquiry

PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Saturday while hearing Malam Jabba, Billion Tree Tsunami and Bank of Khyber inquiry case ordered to submit minutes of NAB executive board’s last year meeting, ARY News reported.

A high court bench in a four-page ruling demanded the National Accountability Bureau’s executive board’s minutes, which had decided to close an inquiry into the alleged irregularities in the 2014 leasing of government land in Malam Jabba.

A bench consisting of Justice Roohul Amin and Justice Mohammad Ibrahim ordered the NAB’s deputy prosecutor general to submit the minutes in the next hearing of the case.

“Why and on whose order the inquiry was closed,” the bench asked the NAB deputy prosecutor.

The NAB prosecutor argued that the board meeting’s minutes are secret. The court remarked that no law has declared that the minutes of that meeting would be kept secret and ordered to present the minutes in the next hearing of the case on April 28.

The bench also directed the NAB to speed up its inquiry into alleged irregularities in Billion Tree Tsunami project.

The civil society members had sought the court’s decision that the NAB had failed to act about the alleged irregularities in several major projects of the provincial government.