The government on Thursday appointed former Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief Aftab Sultan as the new chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Retired Justice Javed Iqbal had relinquished charge as the NAB chairman on June 2 after the expiry of a recently promulgated ordinance, which had allowed him to stay in office until the appointment of a new chief.

A notification issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, stated: "The federal government is pleased to appoint Aftab Sultan, a retired BS-22 officer of Police Service of Pakistan, as chairman NAB after consultation between the leader of the House and the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, for a non-extendable period of three years with effect from the date he assumes the charge of his office."

It added that the new NAB chief's terms and conditions during his service would "be same as admissible to the judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan".

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah also tweeted about the high-profile appointment. The minister said the federal cabinet had approved Sultan's nomination.

"He is a man of impeccable integrity having an impressive past record. We are hopeful that he will be able to steer the accountability drive without any partisanship," the minister said.

Addressing a press conference after a meeting of the federal cabinet, the minister stated that the cabinet had approved Sultan's appointment.

According to Radio Pakistan, Sanaullah said that Sultan's credibility was "beyond doubt".

Profile

The new NAB chairman is a law graduate from Punjab University, who later did LLM from the University of Cambridge and also MSc in jurisprudence/legal studies from the University of Edinburgh.

In 2002, as regional police officer in Sargodha, Sultan refused to assist the administration during the referendum called by then chief executive, retired General Pervez Musharraf. He paid for his defiance when he was made OSD.

He also prepared a 5,000-page report on the directives of the Supreme Court as additional inspector general of police about the famous Bank of Punjab case. The SC had appointed Sultan as the investigation officer after expressing dissatisfaction over the investigations conducted by NAB.

Sultan had retired as the IB head on April 3, 2018 after serving since June 7, 2013.

He served two governments each of the PPP and the PML-N under four prime ministers — Yousuf Raza Gilani, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.