ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court decided on Monday to proceed ex parte against the government organisations or their subsidiaries which had refused to get their funds audited and opted not to be represented in the court.
A three-judge bench comprising Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan had taken up petitions filed by journalists Hamid Mir and Absar Alam and others seeking a court order for abolition of secret service funds maintained by the Ministry of Information. On May 9, the court had ordered the auditor general’s office to submit a report on consolidated and public funds of all federal ministries and their attached departments which had never been subjected to audit as well as the ministries and departments concerned claiming that the funds were secret.
Consequently, the auditor general’s office informed the court that it had identified 19 government departments which were refusing to get their accounts audited after which the court issued notices to them for Monday.
The Federal Board of Revenue, Defence Housing Authority, Trust Fund for Voluntary Organisation, Punjab Power Development Company, Punjab Industrial Estate and National Police Foundation chose not to join the court proceedings despite the fact that notices had been issued to them.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, People Primary Health Institution, National Database Registration Authority, Wah Noble (Pvt) Ltd, Agri Business Support Fund, POF Welfare Trust Fund, Punjab Rural Support Programme, Punjab Land Development Company, Punjab Coal Mines, Punjab Agriculture and Wheat Company, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd and Pak-China Investment Company were represented either by their counsel or senior officials.
The court ordered these organisations to submit in seven days concise statements along with documents justifying their claims of privilege on the accounts and postponed the proceedings to July 22.
About the audit of disbursement of money from consolidated funds of the federation and the provinces as well as the public accounts, Attorney General Muneer A. Malik said that under articles 169 and 170 of the constitution every fund had to be audited and the auditor general had the authority to determine the nature and extent of audit.
He said there were certain allocations whose details were not possible to collect because during the war time or other emergency situations it was difficult to get receipts or vouchers of the expenditure made. That is why the auditor general has to determine the extent and nature of such expenditures.
Advocate Dr Abdul Basit, representing one of the organisations, requested the court to issue a notice to the defence authority which received 50 per cent of the total budget allocation but their accounts were not auditable.
Justice Jawwad said the attorney general had already stated that every single penny of the public money was auditable. “This is what the constitution says,” he said, adding that the court could not go into conjectures.
“There is no secret fund in the constitution except the consolidated funds and the public accounts,” Justice Khawaja observed. He recalled that before 2010 there were audit regimes under which certain departments had been exempted from audit, but 2010 was a history now.
The court indicated that it would issue a judgment in this regard.