ISLAMABAD - The Supreme Court, hearing a suo motu case regarding the alleged misuse of IB’s secret funds on Friday, sought the attorney general’s opinion on the procedure regarding use of secret funds by spy agencies.
A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, asked AGP Munir A Malik about the legal procedure regarding use of secret fund by spy agencies as it had been reported in media that the government had exempted the secret fund of spy agencies from audit by making amendment in Finance Bill.
The AG told the court that he was unaware of the government’s decision, but would go through the budget documents besides seeking information from the authorities concerned in this matter. The hearing of the case was adjourned until July 9.
It is worth mentioning that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government has already decided to stop the secret funds of all ministries except top spy agencies.
According to the budget speech document, a number of ministries and departments have been incurring such expenditure as are exempted from audit. “This exclusion from audit is meant for expenditures incurred by agencies related to the national security. Secret service expenditures will be made only by the agencies related to the national security,” the budget speech document said. It is also learnt that an appropriate amendment is being made in the rules for this purpose.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of IB in maintaining the law and order situation in the country. The counsel for IB told the bench that there were two types of fund in the agency, an auditable regular fund and a secret fund that could not be audited.
The bench directed him to provide the rules under which IB’s secret fund could not be audited by another department of the state. The chief justice also made it clear that in the first stage, they were asking about the unaudited secret fund of IB. Later, they would ask the other spy agencies regarding the audit of their secret funds, the bench said.
The CJP questioned IB’s performance despite allocation of huge funds to the agency. He said targeted killings are occurring daily in Karachi.