Watchman’s Paradox

Questions are galour over a top appointment to Punjab’s anti-corruption body

LAHORE: The caretaker government of Punjab province has appointed Senior Superintendent Police (SSP), Sohail Zafar Chattha, as director-general (DG) of the provincial Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE), sparking widespread criticism as Mr Chattha does not fulfill procedural requirements for the job, and also faces allegations of embezzling police funds.

A senior official told Bol News that as per the ACE Rules 2007, the post of DG ACE can only be allotted to an officer of Grade-20 and above, but Mr Chattha is a Grade-19 officer. He was specially requisitioned from the Islamabad police to head ACE. As such, more than 50 provincial government departments and attached departments have been put under his watch, he said.

To a question, the official said that after the recent amendments made to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Ordinance, corruption cases involving less than Rs 500 million would now fall in the domain of ACE Punjab instead of NAB, thereby adding to ACE’s importance.

Significantly, Mr Chattha himself has been facing a NAB inquiry into alleged misappropriation of funds released to the office of District Police Officer (DPO) Gujrat. In this case, which was filed in 2019, in addition to Mr Chattha, NAB was probing three more former DPOs of Gujrat, namely Superintendent of Police (SP) Kamran Mumtaz, SSP Rai Ijaz and SSP Rai Zameer. As per the NAB’s claim, during their respective tenures in Gujrat, they embezzled a total of around Rs 3 billion under different heads including petrol, uniforms, martyr funds, fake vouchers, pensions and “ghost” employees.

Rai Ejaz and Kamran Mumtaz were arrested by NAB, and were later released on bail granted to them by the Lahore High Court (LHC). Soon after his release in April 2022, Rai Ijaz was appointed as Gujranwala’s City Police Officer (CPO) by PML-N’s Hamza Shahbaz during his brief tenure as Chief Minister Punjab. He is now posted as director of the Faisalabad office of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

As for Sohail Zafar Chattha, soon after NAB arrested the two DPOs of Gujrat, he fled the country for a year, and returned in 2020 after securing a pre-arrest bail from the LHC. An accountability court subsequently indicted all the four former DPOs and their accomplices in the case.

NAB had also started another probe against Mr Chattha when he was the DPO of Sheikhupura. The probe was launched following complaints of alleged corruption in official funds utilized during 2012-19. The Bureau had sought revenue records of those seven years to dig out the facts. Mr Chattha had held that post for nine months during 2015-16.

Notably, following the NAB amendment, all those cases now fall within Mr Chattha’s jurisdiction. Bol News tried to reach him for his comments, but he did not respond to calls and text messages.

Talking to Bol News, a senior ACE Punjab official said that Mr Chattha is the third Grade-19 officer to have been posted as DG ACE. Shoukat Ali Rana of the Public Service Commission (PSC) was posted to this seat in 1999 by the then PML-N government. He stayed in the office for only three months. Later in 2009, Rana Abdul Raheem from the FIA was posted as DG ACE when the then PPP government imposed Governor’s Rule in Punjab. He held the position only for a month.

“Appointment of Mr Chattha is against the ACE Rules. It will be challenged, either by the legal fraternity or by the political parties,” the official said, adding that Mr Chattha is very close to Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, which may be a reason why he was chosen for the slot.

Significantly, a case of receiving a plot of land as a gift from a housing society is already pending at the ACE against Rana Sanaullah, the official said. He added that due to pending inquiries against him, Mr Chattha couldn’t be promoted to Grade-20 thus far, but the promotion has now been promised to him “on the basis of his performance.”

Asked if there was any likelihood of Zafar Chattha being used against the leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, another police officer close to Chattha denied it, saying that Mr Chattha had always performed his duties as per the law, and that he was not sent to Punjab with any specific task or to target any specific political party.

However, talking to Bol News, senior PTI leader and former Minister of State for Information, Farrukh Habib, said that Mr Chattha was the person who led the 25 May operation against the PTI workers and its leaders in Islamabad, and that he had been posted as DG ACE with a specific task to target the PTI again.

A NAB spokesman, Muhammad Zeeshan, was approached for comments on latest updates on the cases related to Mr Chattha, but he did not respond.