MULTAN: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has rehired three of its former officers who had `opted for` retirement in April last after the Supreme Court ordered that otherwise their services should be terminated, Dawn has learnt.

The sources said the appointments have also been made in violation of another direction of the court, according to which the NAB authorities were bound to send a requisition for its existing vacancies to the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) which was to take steps to fill the posts.

But, the NAB authorities made the appointments on their own, without following the court direction, they added.

In August, an advertisement was issued by the NAB to hire senior and junior (investigation) experts in BS-19 and BS-20, respectively.

The qualification for a senior expertslot was to be a retired (BS-20 or above) employee of federal or provincial government/autonomous/semi-autonomous/corporation, having master`s degree and 10-year of experience in awareness and prevention of white collar crimes or training/operation.

Similarly, for junior expert slot the candidate should be a retired BS-19 or above employee with master`s degree and 10-year experience. The age limit was 65 years for both slots, while the offered salary was Rs150,000 for the senior expert and Rs120,000 for the junior.

However, the NAB hired the services of its former director general at Lahore retired Maj Syed Burhan Ali, former DG, Quetta retired Maj Tariq Mehmood Malik and former DG Karachi retired Maj Shabbir Ahmed as (senior) experts. The officers have been posted at NAB headquarters.

They were among the nine officers who lacked the qualification for their appointments made in the NAB in 2002.

On March 31, the Supreme Court in itsjudgment in a suo motu notice case had constituted a committee headed by then Establishment Secretary Syed Tahir Shahbaz to probe into these NAB appointments.

The secretary had submitted a report to the court after scrutinising the appointments/promotions/absorptions/deputations and contract appointments made in NAB since 2002. He had identified inconsistencies in the appointments made on a regular basis, through promotions and through induction.

The court was informed that two of the nine officers opted for voluntary retirement, while as many others have already retired. Two others opted for repatriation to their parent departments, it was informed.

The remaining three of ficers Maj Ali, Maj Mahmood and Maj Ahmed also decided to opt for retirement after court directed the bureau to terminate them if they failed to exercise the `option` of retirement within four days. The court also directed that all the existing vacancies in the NAB be filled within threemonths through the FPSC, from the date the proposed committee finally submitted its report to the court.In the intervening period, it ordered, the NAB would requisition the existing vacancies to the FPSC which would take steps for filling the posts.

Sources said that to accommodate these retired officers no requisition was ever sent to the FPSC for filling the said posts.

A NAB spokesperson, Nawazish Ali Khan, however, said as all the three of ficers fulfilled the criteria, there was nothing wrong with hiring them as experts.

`They as NAB of ficers during their previousjob gained experience ininvesugation field so they will prove more helpful in investigating the cases,` he said.

He added there was no need to engage the FPSC to hire the experts.

The sources said that NAB had recruited two experts Rana Zahid and Khurshid Anwar Bhinder as experts who were later made director generals of two of its major stations.