Over 1,000 corruption cases pending in Pakistan

There are over 1,000 corruption cases currently pending in different accountability courts of Pakistan.

The country's apex anti-corruption watchdog National Accountability Bureau (NAB) wants the cases to be heard at the earliest.

The Express Tribune reported that NAB Chairman Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal, in a meeting at the headquarters on Tuesday, said 347 corruption references from the Lahore Bureau were currently under trial. Moreover, 275 references were from NAB Karachi, 185 references were from NAB Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 97 were from NAB Balochistan, 171 were from NAB Rawalpindi, 34 references were from NAB Multan and 29 corruption references were from NAB Sukkur.

NAB Chairman Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal further directed that inquiries and investigations pending in various regional bureaus, which were not finalised within the stipulated time period of 10 months, should be completed at the earliest.

The respective accountability courts should be requested for early hearing of corruption cases in order to recover the hefty misappropriated amount of Rs 900 billion, the NAB chief further directed.

In addition to this, Justice Iqbal further instructed to improve the annual grading system which evaluates the annual performance of officials, the report said.