The Supreme Court Friday suspended certain clauses of The Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) Rules, 2014, which required the department to obtain permission from the chief minister prior to taking action against senior bureaucrats.
A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar took up a petition filed by ACE Director General (DG) Hussain Asghar in which he stated that it is mandatory for the body to take permission from the chief minister before initiating proceedings against any high-profile bureaucrat. “If the chief minister does not give the go ahead, the body cannot even file a first investigation report against a bureaucrat,” he said. The court subsequently suspended rules 5, 6 and 10 of the ACE rules, in which certain sub-rules pertain to obtaining the chief minister’s permission prior to taking action against senior bureaucrats.
Published in Daily Times, November 17th 2018.
