A meeting of the Public Accounts Committee began scrutinising Justice Mazahar Ali Naqvi’s assets on Monday.
Reports from inside the meeting said that 11 committee members were in favour of scrutinising the judge’s assets, with only Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Mohsin Aziz voting against the proceeding.
The committee ordered the Federal Investigation Agency to submit records of the judge’s travel history. Orders were also issued to NADRA to submit details of Justice Mazahar’s family, and to the Capital Development Authority and provincial governments for deals of assets and properties owned by him.
The Federal Board of Revenue has been asked to submit a complete record of Justice Naqvi’s tax returns and assets. The ministry of housing has also been asked to submit a record of all plots alloted to him.
All departments have been instructed to submit the required record within 15 days. The committee will also send notices expressing ‘displeasure’ to bureaucrats who did not attend the meeting. Committee Chairman Noor Alam Khan said that he would issue a warrant for the officers who had not shown up in the meeting.
Senator Mohsin Aziz opposed the proceeding and said that the committee should not fuel the fire and should instead try to cool things down. He also added that the government had ‘used’ the parliament to send the matter to the committee.
He added that just because Justice Naqvi had issued a judgement that was not acceptable to certain people was not enough for proceedings to be initiated.
“We will have to consider the mandate of the committee in this matter,” Senator Aziz said.
Noor Alam Khan replied that there was no room for doctrine of necessity in the constitution. He said that the matter had been referred to the committee under rule 199 and procedures had been followed.
“The Supreme Court is ours too, we are not doing anything wrong,” he said.
An alleged audio leaked to the media had revealed Justice Naqvi being mentioned in an a conversation between PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry and his brother Faisal in connection with a bribe.
A complaint had then been filed against Justice Naqvi alleging that he had assets over Rs3 billion, of which most had not been properly declared in his tax return.
