LAHORE: NAB Lahore DG Shahzad Saleem has challenged the notice of his summon by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in the Tayabba Gul harassment case in the Islamabad High Court (IHC).
National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Lahore DG Shahzad Saleem has made the federation, PAC Wing, and others as respondents in the application filed on Wednesday.
The petitioner said the PAC was being ‘ultra-vires’ of its jurisdiction and legal peripheries while maintaining that the forum doesn’t enjoy any sort of jurisdiction in this particular case.
He added that the notice by the committee was in contravention of the prescribed National Assembly rules as well as against the spirit of the Constitution.
The petitioner said his summoning along with ex-NAB chairman Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal has raised a lot of questions about the PAC chairman’s impartiality.
Saleem said that there was an inquiry pending against the PAC chairman in NAB hinting that he might initiate action in vengeance.
It could not be ruled out that the PAC chairman had a personal agenda behind the whole episode.
“It cannot be ruled out either that the committee chairman member of the National Assembly (MNA) Noor Alam Khan might have himself asked the woman to file the complaint against me and the ex-NAB chairman only for his own vested interest because he is already facing an inquiry by the bureau,” he said in the petition.
DG added, “Such is the conduct of the committee chairman that he keeps bragging about that he was not loyal to the party on whose ticket he was elected as MNA.”
Saleem said applications by Gul were already sub judice in Lahore accountability and federal Shariat courts while adding that the PAC could not initiate an inquiry in the matter against him as it was not the related forum for redressal of such complaints.
The petitioner pleaded with the court to nullify the PAC notice sent to him.