The former judge earned notoriety when a video went viral showing him sweet-talking and embracing, in his office, a woman whose husband was in NAB custody.
By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Tayyaba Gul claims she shared the video with the then prime minister in the hope the perpetrator of injustice against her would be brought to justice.
Instead, the video – showing the man who then headed the feared National Accountability Bureau (NAB) walk around his huge table to embrace and sweet-talk her – went viral after a private television channel aired it.
Gul’s humiliation was endless when neither the prime minster nor any other authority in the land of the pure deemed it sufficient grounds to initiate action against the notorious former judge.
Now there are new hopes of reckoning for Justice (R) Javed Iqbal after a decision by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to look into the matter of the leaked video – although it is far from clear at this stage what aspect of the episode fall under the jurisdiction of PAC.
The Committees said it would look into the matter the other day following a petition from Gul, who is promising to place on the record more evidence of wrongdoing by the notorious former judge, DG NAB Lahore Shahzad Saleem, and other unspecified officials of NAB.
A qualified lawyer, Gul uploaded the compromising video to Pakistan Citizen Portal to seek justice on May 10, 2019. She has since claimed it was broadcast at the behest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
She points out that the channel that aired it was owned by a Khan crony who was also a special assistant to the PM at the time.
Back when the scandal broke, NAB had refuted the scandalous audio and video, labelling the material “libellous, propagandist and fake”. It claimed the viral video was “an attempt to blackmail the state institution over ongoing corruption investigations against a gang of blackmailers”.
Tayyaba Gul on her part said she had approached the NAB Chairman in connection with a case against her husband, but the he started to harass her through messages asking for sexual favours. She alleged she had been threatened with NAB inquiries if she failed to oblige.
Gul has also reportedly alleged that that NAB functionaries installed CCTV cameras to watch women detainees, and that male officials harassed female detainees in the name of interrogation. This has been seen as a corroboration of similar allegations made multiple times by PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz.
Appointed to the NAB chairmanship by the government of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in October 2017, Iqbal was criticised on account of misusing his power of arrest to victimise Sharif’s party once he was ousted from power and his nemesis Imran Khan installed in power.
His detractors allege that instead of chasing the corrupt, NAB under his watch focused on locking up opposition politicians on charges that failed to stand in the court.
Those locked up under his tenue include former president Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur, incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz, former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, incumbent Finance Minister Miftah Ismail, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Syed Khursheed Shah, and incumbent Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz – among others.
The charges against each one of them failed to stand the scrutiny of court, although each endured several months of imprisonment.
In October 2021, Iqbal had his tenure extended by six months by Imran Khan’s administration. A legal lacuna created by PTI government allowed him to stay in office until June 3 – when the said law, enacted through a presidential ordinance, was allowed to lapse by the Sharif administration.
While it eased the former Chairman NAB out of his office at the first opportunity, the incumbent Pakistan Democratic Front (PDM) government has shown no interest in investigating the allegations against him – although PDM leaders are often heard ranting against his conduct.
Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) spokesperson Azma Bokhari said recently the then prime minister Imran Khan had used Gul’s video to blackmail Justice (R) Iqbal to lock up PML-N leaders in trumped up cases and to let off the hook members of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) wanted for corruption.
Justice Iqbal is still the head of the National Commission for Missing Persons constituted by the Ministry of Interior on the Supreme Court’s directions. In the past, he has been a judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Chief Justice Balochistan High Court, and head of the Abbottabad Inquiry Commission.
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