LHC to decide on petition claiming Nawaz was not granted right of appeal in Panama case

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday heard a miscellaneous petition that claimed that former premier Nawaz Sharif was not granted the right of appeal following his disqualification in the Panama Papers case.

The petition, filed today by A K Dogar of the Lawyer Foundation for Justice, challenged the dismissal of a case of similar nature by an LHC single-member bench earlier this year.

Dogar had filed an intra-court petition challenging the verdict immediately it was passed. However, after four to five months of inaction, Dogar today filed a miscellaneous appeal with the same prayer.

The petitioner argued that Sharif had been denied the right of appeal in the Panama Papers case, which was against the law. The right of appeal is every citizen’s constitutional and legal right, he maintained.

He added that Sharif’s right of appeal had been denied under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution which, Dogar claimed, was “against Islamic law”. He urged the bench to overturn the single bench’s ruling as well as the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Panama Papers case.

A two-member LHC bench, headed by Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh, heard the appeal. During the hearing, the bench said that since it had not issued any notice regarding the maintainability of the earlier petition, it could not hear the miscellaneous petition.

Dogar requested the court to fix a date for the hearing of the “main case” — the original intra-court appeal he had filed — pleading that even though multiple proceedings were held, there had been no development in the case.

Subsequently, the LHC bench ruled that the original intra-court appeal will be heard by a two-member high court bench on October 17.

Source: Dawn News