Broadsheet probe body ToR notified.

ISLAMABAD -- The government on Thursday notified terms of reference (ToR) of the Broadsheet Inquiry Commission to be headed by retired Justice Azmat Saeed Sheikh, giving it powers to investigate mega corruption cases surfaced since 1990.

The commission is likely to reinvestigate scandals and cases tried in local and international courts like Surrey Palace against the Pakistan Peoples Party leadership and Hudaibiya Paper Mills and other cases mentioned by UK-based assets recovery firm Broadsheet LLC against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family members.

Meanwhile, two premier bodies of lawAAAyers - the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and Supreme Court Bar AssoAciation (SCBA) - have expressed serious reservations over the appointment of former judge Azmat Saeed as head of the one-man inquiry commission.

According to one of the main clauses of ToR, the commission will 'identify the incidents and cases relating to recovery efforts and legal proceedings pursued by the government of Pakistan since the year 1990 in foreign jurisdictions for recovery of unlawfully removed money or illegally acquired assets, but were closed, abandoned and/or withdrawn without any valid reason or justification resulting in colossal losses to the country'.

The notification said the inquiry commission had been tasked with investigating the menace of corruption and corrupt practices by holders of high public offices which resulted in mega scams and reported outflow of billions of dollars from Pakistan to safe havens abroad using multilayered transactions and causing irreparable economic damage to the people of Pakistan who were the rightful owners of the plundered national treasure.

'Whereas, the federal government and/or other bodies, authorities, bureaus, etc, while engaged in efforts to trace and track such unlawfully laundered national wealth reportedly procured or engaged services and entered into arrangements, agreements, etc, with different individuals, legal entities, firms, etc,' it added.

The notification said the commission would act on the issues in which the people of Pakistan were highly desirous of repatriation of the unlawfully laundered money and result-oriented accountability in accordance with the law.

It stated: 'And whereas the federal government reflecting the will of the people is determined to trace and track the ill-gotten national wealth stashed abroad as well as domestically and also to seek accountability of the process through which...