The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has ordered the expulsion of Arif Usmani, President of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), and Zubair Soomro, Chairman of the bank’s Board of Directors (BoD).
The IHC directed the government to immediately remove the two officers. On June 2, the court reserved judgement on a petition filed against the NBP president.
Syed Jahangir, Javed Iqbal, Fazal Raheem, and Latif Qureshi submitted the petition. It contended that the nomination of the NBP president violated the Public Sector (Appointment of Chief Executive) Guidelines 2015.
The petitioners contended that the bank’s president held a physics degree, which was in violation of the requirement for a degree in banking and finance. This rendered him unqualified to serve as the bank’s chief executive officer, the petition stated.
Despite this, the defence counsel contended that the bank generated impressive profits throughout Usmani’s tenure as president. Soomro’s counsel contended that the petition was motivated by malice, particularly given that the petitioners were unaffected by the appointments.
However, the court determined that if the degree was unrelated to a field, a judge might be appointed as a bank head as well.
