National Database and Registration Authority Chairman Tariq Malik resigned on Tuesday from his post, citing a ‘charged and polarised political environment’ after his meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday.

“While it has been an absolute honour to lead NADRA, to have connected with so many wonderful individuals and institutions, and to have learnt so much, I find it increasingly difficult to work in a charged and polarised political environment,” he said in his resignation letter.

Malik arrived at the PM’s House to meet Shehbaz, where he tendered his resignation as Nadra chief. The chairman is under investigation by the Federal Investigation Agency for alleged involvement in a corruption scandal, according to sources.

“It is difficult for any professional to maintain his integrity and independence in an environment that constantly pigeon-holes people in an ‘us versus them’ logic and where political loyalty is privileged over competence,” the letter said.

This was Malik’s second stint as Nadra chairman, the first having ended in 2013. The N-league government had initially removed him from the post but he was reinstated by the court. He later resigned himself because of “pressure and threats”.

He was the first person to be appointed to the position through a competitive process.

The organisation deserves a thorough professional with a background in technology and management, says Tariq Malik, who resigned from the post of Nadra chief

Prior to joining the authority as its chairman in June 2021, Malik was working as chief technical adviser at the United Nations Development Programme.

He was a member of the core team who helped to initiate the worldwide ‘ID for Development (ID4D) Programme’ as well as authored the framework of international standards for digital identity.

In his resignation letter, Malik pleaded the prime minister to not appoint a serving or retired bureaucrat to the role of Nadra chairman, saying: “The organisation deserves a thorough professional with a background in technology and management”.

Sources said that Malik’s name has been added to the no-fly list because of the investigation against him by the FIA.

The agency has obtained the details of his assets after the “revelation” of alleged corruption in the NADRA contract.

The FIA summoned Malik on May 19 in investigations pertaining to the award of a “contract to a favoured international company at an expensive price”.

During his second tenure as its chairman, NADRA developed Pakistan’s first ever Automated Finger Identification System, Nishan Pakistan (of KYC) for public-private partnerships anchored in digital ID and rolling out “Tasdeeq Service” for elderly people with unreadable fingerprints among other initiatives.