In a major development, the federal government on Saturday issued a notification for the appointment of Justice (r) Sheikh Azmat Saeed as the head of commission formed to probe the Broadsheet issue.
Copies of the notification have also been sent to the attorney general, secretary to the president and secretary to the prime minister. The Cabinet Division also issued the 10 terms of reference (TORs) along with the notification. The commission has been empowered with forming committees of experts and officers so that it could get into the skin of the case. The commission has been tasked with investigating the appointments made by Broadsheet and IAR and the agreements these two organisations entered into. The commission will also try to find out the reasons for the cancelation of agreements between the government of Pakistan, Broadsheet and International East Recovery Firms in 2003. The commission has also been authorised with digging out the reasons for the payments made by Pakistan to Broadsheet in 2008, and whether these payments were legal. Besides that, it will try to identify the people behind the illegal payment of $1.5 million in 2008.
Similarly, the commission will try to ascertain whether the case was pursued in London courts or not. Likewise, it would probe as to why the cases filed for the recovery of assets made through ill-gotten wealth were closed, and how much the country was damaged financially by that. Similarly, it would also be its job to pinpoint those responsible for closing these cases.
The federal government on January 21 had named Justice (r) Sheikh Azmat Saeed as head of inquiry committee to probe the Broadsheet matter. The opposition parties, particularly Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), are up in arms against the appointment of Justice (r) Saeed as the head of the commission.
