ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (retired) Javed Iqbal has ordered an inquiry into the offshore companies owned by 435 Pakistanis in the tax havens of Panama and British Virgin Islands.

He has sought details of persons concerned from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

He said no pressure and influence would be taken into consideration and the inquiry would be conducted transparently and purely on merit having solid evidence.

The companies of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) senior leader Aleem Khan and former FBR chairman Abdullah Yousaf are also included in the list released by the Panama Papers.

Khan’s offshore company, HEXAM, was established in 2004 and registered in British Virgin Islands. Yousaf owns Green Deal Management and Green Wood Investment.

Iqbal directed his team to co-ordinate with all the stakeholders, if needed, and gather information from key institutions, including the FBR, SBP, SECP and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) besides some material already available.

He also ordered all the regional offices to file applications with respective accountability courts for an early hearing of under-trial references so as to recover Rs900 billion from corrupt people and bring them to justice. Taking notice of 499 inquiries and 287 investigations being conducted in all the regional offices, Javed expressed disappointment over the regions’ inability to take cases to the logical end.

He said 499 inquiries and 287 investigations had not been completed in prescribed timeframe of 10 months as per law.

He asked as to why references had not been filed with the accountability courts after completion of investigation. As many as 1,138 references are being tried by the courts.

Reported by the International Consortium of Journalists (ICIJ) in April 2016, the revelations in the leaked files of the Mossack Fonseca law firm led to several high-profile corruption investigations around the world. In Pakistan, a petition based on the leaks moved before the Supreme Court had led to the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister.

However, Justice Iqbal’s predecessor Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, whose four-year term ended two months ago, did not take any action against the Pakistani citizens named as owners of offshore firms in the leaks.