ISLAMABAD: Deputy Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Imtiaz Tajwar on Tuesday moved the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to quash an FIR registered against him in connection with graft charges.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) registered the case on March 21.

Mr Tajwar was serving as the additional secretary in the Ministry of Interior when he was given the additional charge of the Nadra chairman after the resignation of Tariq Malik in 2014. He remained the act-ing chairman of Nadra for over a year.

The FIA investigation showed that Mr Tajwar allegedly paid visa fee of his children, purchased expensive gifts for his relatives and sacrificial animals from illgotten money in Nadra.

The FIA registered the FIR under section5(2)470fthe PreventionofCorruption Act for misuse of authority and corruption, said a statement issued by the interior ministry.

However, Mr Tajwar, alleged that the case was registered against him on the whims and wishes of the high-ups of the Ministry of Interior.

`The instant inquiry and registration ofcase is not only illegal from its very inception but also carried out on the whims and wishes of the high-ups sitting in the echelons of the Ministry of Interior for the reasons best known to them,` he stated in the petition filed with the IHC.

In October 2016, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had ordered the FIA to launch formal investigations against Mr Tajwar for alleged irregularities in Nadra when he was its acting chairman.

But the petition contended that the FIR had been lodged with a mala fide intention against the provisions of the FIA Act 1974 and the FIA (inquiries and investiga-tion) rules 2002 and was liable to be quashed.

It maintained that when the petitioner held the charge of the acting chairman, the national database authority earned a record profit of Rs3.8 billion, adding Mr Tajwar did not draw any salary or allowance while serving in Nadra.

Besides,it said,not a single observation pointed out any irregularity or illegality in the two audit reports of Nadra.

The petitioner has been accused of corruption as a part of political victimisation and character assassination, the petition said, requesting the court to quash the FIR.