SC asks NAB for record of recoveries through plea deals.

ISLAMABAD -- The Supreme Court ordered the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Thursday to furnish a complete record of recoveries it had made through voluntary returns, or plea bargain, of misappropriated funds over the last decade, as well as the amount the bureau disbursed to the federal and provincial governments.

Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial, who headed a three-judge Supreme Court bench, observed it was being said that NAB had made huge recoveries in recent years.

The bench had taken up a challenge to the amendments made in the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) in August last year.

Mumtaz Yousaf, the bureau's additional prosecutor general (APG), informed the court that NAB had retrieved an unspecified amount of money under the voluntary return scheme and other heads on misappropriated funds.

Judges call amendments in accountability law 'step in wrong direction'

Khawaja Haris Ahmed, who is representing petitioner Imran Khan in the case, informed the court that NAB always compiled a report on annual basis mentioning the amount it had recovered from individuals accused of misappropriating funds.

Justice Ijazul Ahsan, pointing towards senior counsel Makhdoom Ali Khan, regretted that instead of taking one step forward, the government had taken several steps back by making amendments in the NAB law.

After the amendments, the onus to establish the actual beneficiary, or who indirectly controls benami properties, had been shifted to the prosecution to prove that a certain accused owned the properties and its title documents, which was beyond his known source of income, but parked somewhere else.

'The main onus has been placed on the prosecution and it is next to impossible to prove as to who is the ostensible beneficiary of the properties in question,' regretted Justice Ahsan.

The CJP said that through the amendments, the definition of 'benamidar' has been changed and instead of updating a law in keeping with changing needs, the government went back to outdated laws in force since centuries.

The actual beneficiary always manages properties or assets parked somewhere else by remote control, Chief Justice Bandial observed.

The CJP earlier recalled if the properties were parked in the name of spouses, relatives or associates, the first...