PPP busy with strategy to counter Pak SC move to revive cases under NRO

Islamabad, Nov 9 (ANI): Legal experts of the ruling Pakistan People's Party are busy working out a pre-emptive strategy to counter a Supreme Court move to revive cases withdrawn under the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). The same could be brought under the purview of the proposed National Accountability Commission (NAC) to declare them politically motivated.

PPP sources said that the cases withdrawn under the NRO cannot be revived unless the apex court comes out with a clear-cut revocation of the ordinance ab initio and makes all legal transactions under it null and void.

The main focus of the PPP will be on the draft bill of the NAC, which is likely to replace the incumbent National Accountability Bureau that has already been made redundant by the coalition government, the sources further informed.

Sources privy to these developments informed that the draft proposal of the National Accountability Commission was almost approved by the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Law and Justice a couple of weeks back and now the members were just to sign the approved draft.

But in the meantime, the NRO was tabled before the House and referred to the standing committee for review. The committee put the routine business aside to take up this matter of urgent nature as the ordinance was going to lapse on 28th of November and the committee had to clear it for tabling before the National Assembly before that date.

The situation was not only humiliating but also alarming for PPP because a large number of PPP stalwarts including President Asif Ali Zardari are among the beneficiaries of the ordinance, The Nation reports.

The sources revealed that it was decided in a high-level meeting of the PPP called in the Presidency to review the post-NRO debacle scenario that the cases withdrawn under the NRO if revived by the Supreme Court of Pakistan would be brought in the ambit of the proposed National Accountability Commission for review.

The sources disclosed that with these powers with the new Accountability Commission, the cases dropped under NRO, if revived, would also come in its ambit and the commission after scrutiny could once again drop these cases declaring them politically motivated. (ANI)