ISLAMABAD: National Database and Registration Authority chairman Tariq Malik wrote a letter to the Federal Investigation Agency on Sunday in response to allegations levelled by the FIA against him, inside sources told Dawn.
An FIA spokesperson had in a press release hurled allegations at Mr Malik about his Canadian nationality, his passports and official visits to different countries as deputy chairman and chairman of Nadra.
The government had on Dec 2 sacked Mr Malik without any notice but he was restored by the Islamabad High Court the next day.
Last week, an inspector of the FIA, Azmat Khan, served a notice on Mr Malik in which the latter was called a former chairman of Nadra.
“While I reply to FlA’s questionnaire handed over to me on January 1, 2014, I feel seriously prejudiced by the statement made by FIA’s spokesperson as I have been publicly defamed by making legally and factually incorrect assertions regarding the allegations which are still being inquired into by FIA…,” Mr Malik wrote.
He said the language used by the FIA’s spokesperson was not appropriate and it seemed that FIA was pursuing some vendetta against him. “The self-evident bias shown by FlA against me clearly seems to be geared at achieving a pre-determined goal in conclusion of its inquiry. I, therefore, also seek to refute the wrong factual and legal statements made by FIA in its statement to the media,” he said.
The FIA’s spokesperson alleged that Mr Malik had concealed his Canadian nationality while applying for his last two passports by stating that he possessed no other passport.
Mr Malik said he had never intentionally concealed his Canadian nationality as it served no purpose to him in obtaining a Pakistani passport. He said Pakistan had a dual nationality arrangement with Canada under the Pakistan Citizenship Act.
“As I have previously held Pakistani passports evidencing that I never renounced Pakistani citizenship (whose record is also kept by the passport department i.e. Directorate General of Immigration & Passport), I had no reason to conceal my Canadian citizenship. I could not be denied Pakistani passport even if this information were available to the passport-issuing authority,” he said.
The FIA’s spokesperson had accused Mr Malik of presenting himself as a “private employee” by concealing his status as deputy chairman of Nadra.
Mr Malik said Nadra was a statutory body and its chairman and deputy chairman fell in the category of private employees.
To FIA’s queries about his visits abroad, Mr Malik said he had obtained prior permission from the competent authority for all those visits.