The Supreme Court on Tuesday declared Admiral (r) Fasih Bukhari’s appointment as against the NAB ordinance and urged the federal government to appoint a new chief. The dismissal is the conclusion of the petition filed by PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar. As transpired in the proceedings, it is obvious that a failure to fulfil procedural formalities led to his dismissal, which calls for the consultation process to be invariably carried out before the Chairman’s appointment. The leader of the Opposition Chaudhry Nisar was not consulted, which subjected Mr Bukhari’s appointment to questions, doubts and criticism from the very first day he took office.
Given the muscle the chairman NAB wields, it is always necessary for the government to take the leader of the Opposition into confidence and get the assent when the appointment is made for otherwise there would be claims of non-partisanship and politically motivated cases. The idea is to discourage any government of the day or the Chairman NAB from taking on the role of a judge, jury and the executioner. There is also another side to the case. Admiral Bukhari earned the ire of the judiciary for insulting behaviour; the contempt cases are still pending. In the fate of Mr Bukhari and his predecessors, there is something that the next dispensation would also have to chew over; it has before itself a formidable challenge of not going astray of law. Judiciary that has been showing literally no leniency whenever and wherever any act of wrongdoing crops up would also not spare another government the moment it veers off track. Detractors might grumble over the political nature of the cases pursued by the petitioners. The challenge is that if the same standard of impartiality is to be achieved that might have been invoked while sending Mr Bukhari home, the next dispensation could do well to steer a middle course, which means having a workable relationship with the Opposition.
NAB’s history tells us that it can be used for a variety of purposes. It can be an effective tool to clean the Aegean stables of corruption and a tool to bring rivals into line like General Musharraf did, which was followed on by the debate whether it should be abolished once and for all. However harsh they might seem, the measures needed to give this organisation the kind of orientation that is existing but on a piece of paper should be dispensed. In the days ahead NAB ought to continue with its job of zeroing in on corruption in all its forms and manifestations but without illegality or partial accountability for which the previous chiefs had to be removed.