Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Ch Nisar Ali Khan with PM Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has not received any letter from the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, asking it to send its representative to the meetings of the House body in connection with the observations of the auditor general of Pakistan (AGP) about its accounts.

“As far as I remember, we have not received any such letter,” Supreme Court Registrar Dr Faqir Hussain told The Statesmen. He said he would have to go through the official record to trace the correspondence in this connection. However, the registrar said that what he could vividly recall was that the issue whether or not the PAC should go through the AGP’s report on the Supreme Court once came up before the full court.

He said this happened after the restoration of the deposed judges in March last. A decision, he said, is yet to be pronounced on the issue. Dr Faqir Hussain said the PAC would call the representatives of any department only when there were audit paras in the AGP’s report to which it would seek replies from them.

A report said the apex court is yet undecided about returning to past practices of filing its accounts with the PAC on the pretext that it has its own internal accountability mechanism, overseen by the AGP.

The report depicted it as a tug of war between the higher judiciary and the PAC and said that until 2002 — during Pervez Musharraf’s days — the Supreme Court had been putting together representations to clarify or contest the objections of the AGP before an ad hoc PAC but stopped sending its registrar to its meetings.

It said that the registrar’s last appearance at a PAC meeting was on June 7, 2002 to explain a grant and saving of Rs570 million. The report said that following a discussion at a full court meeting on October 22, 2009, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry reserved the judgment, which was yet to be announced. When contacted, Supreme Court Public Relations Officer Shahid Hussain Kamboyo expressed total ignorance about the issue.