KARACHI: Sindh High Court (SHC) has issued notices for January 18 against Chairman and Director General National Accountability Bureau and Chief Secretary Sindh against constitutional petition filed by Dr. Tariq Ahmed Shaikh. NAB officials are required to appear in court along with progress report pertaining to NAB inquiry on case No.20180427124456 without fail. 

According to details petitioner Dr. Tariq Ahmed Shaikh a medical doctor had been working at National Institute of Cardio Vascular Disease (NICVD) Karachi, where on account of colossal irregularities and misuse of funds amounting to billions of rupees of public exchequer, he approached NAB authorities for taking actions in accordance with law against perpetrators.  Petitioner duly attended office of NAB and documents were furnished by him, upon which an inquiry was initiated bearing case No.20180427124456 that resulted in issuance of Call Up Notices to several officers of NICVD to extent out of those 30 individuals, 20 approached Sindh High Court for bail and upon their misconduct, this court recalled bail earlier granted to them.  Issue of corruption in NICVD was also exposed by Auditor General in its report as well as by Transparency International which highlighted misuse of funds of more than Rs 380 million only by one of Executive Directors.

International press highlighted this issue. In this mature inquiry which originated letter October 2, 2020, where number of Call up Notices were issued, seemingly no progress has taken place and those irregularities remained unabated.  Petitioner was threatened and later on fired from his job on October 10, 2020 which act of employer, he has already challenged.

Petitioner pointed out that only purpose of this petition is to seek details of investigation/inquiry made against individuals named in Notice of October 10, 2020 and as to what has caused NAB to freeze these investigations as no further progress has been reported. 

Published in The Daily National Courier, January, 07 2023

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