Tabling the bill, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Babar Awan said NAB was widely seen to have been used as a tool for taking political revenge.

During the last decade, 'a total of Rs.225 billion looted money has been recovered by the NAB', The News said.

Among the cases before the NAB are a Rs.10 billion forest scam in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), a multi-billion rupee pension scam extending across all four provinces, a Rs.16 billion forex scam and a Rs.7.5 billion land grabbing scam in Karachi.

'In some of these cases, it is said the NAB has already been informally told not to proceed whereas in other cases too the bureau is practically unmoved for the last one year because of its uncertain future,' The News said.

A federal minister, according to the newspaper, 'has recently successfully influenced the NAB and barred it from taking any action against the timber mafia in the NWFP 'with the connivance' of the provincial government, as a result of which 'truckloads worth millions are being smuggled with the connivance of the Frontier authorities everyday'.

In certain court cases, the NAB was directed 'not to contest them so as to enable the acquittal of the influential accused. A senior NAB source said that a top ruler in Islamabad and an influential Sindh minister, who had opted not to get their cases quashed through the NRO, got themselves acquitted from courts after ensuring that the NAB lawyers did not contest their cases in the court of law', the newspaper said.