Cabinet approves second NAB amendment bill in span of a month
The federal cabinet on Monday passed the National Accountability (Third Amendment) Bill, 2022, with fresh legislation aiming to restrict the watchdog’s role in corruption cases of over Rs500 million and taking away the president’s authority to appoint accountability court judges.
The joint session of the Parliament on June 10 approved the National Accountability (Second Amendment) Bill, 2021. The bill was opposed and returned unsigned by President Arif Alvi before it became the law.
According to the documents of the new bill, available with Dawn.com, the offence of corruption and corrupt practices as per the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999, will be tied to the value of Rs500m. Hence, corruption cases under Rs500m will not come under the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) ambit, if the bill is passed.
Likewise, Section 16 of the NAO has been replaced with an amendment that suggests that an accused will be tried for an offence under the ordinance in the court under whose territorial jurisdiction the offence was alleged to have been committed. Earlier, there was no territorial limits.
