ISLAMABAD - The National Accountability Bureau on Monday ordered to carry out complaint verification against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and officials of the Establishment Division in a case pertaining to the alleged illegal appointment of Higher Education Commission Chairman Mukhtar Ahmed.

The anti-graft body meeting chaired by NAB Chairman Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal also decided to conduct complaint verification in a case relating to the alleged corruption in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government’s billion tree tsunami project.

The meeting also reviewed the progress of the ongoing inquiries, investigations against illegal private and cooperative housing societies and the steps taken by the Capital Development Authority (CDA), the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) to check their mushroom growth in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

The meeting also reviewed the progress in returning the looted money to the affected people by these societies.

The NAB chief directed the bureau’s Rawalpindi director-general to ensure that the looted money was returned to the affected people by the societies.

The NAB Rawalpindi DG was directed to conclude the ongoing inquiries and investigations against the illegal private cooperative housing societies at the earliest so that the corrupt could be tried and punished as per the law.

The NAB chairman directed the CDA, the RDA and the ICT to timely inform the people about the illegal private cooperative housing societies working in the twin cities so that they did not invest their hard-earned money in such illegal societies. He also directed the CDA, the RDA and the ICT to upload details of such societies on their websites.

The NAB chief asked the people to invest only in legal private and cooperative housing societies that too after complete verification of particulars of such societies from relevant government departments.

Meanwhile, the “Working Group on Higher Education Reforms” has appreciated the NAB decision to investigate the alleged illegal appointment of the HEC chairman.

In a statement issued here, a spokesman for the working group said that such inquiries would be greatly helpful in discouraging illegal and non-transparent appointments of heads of institutions in the higher education sector. He said that the working group along with other stakeholders has already raised serious observations over the non-transparent appointment of the HEC chairman. He also demanded that the prime minister, being the controlling authority of the HEC, ask the HEC chairman not to perform his duty till the conclusion of the NAB inquiry.