Review petition filed by Sharif family against Panama case verdict

ISLAMABAD: A review petition challenging the Supreme Court’s July 28 decision on Panama Case thus disqualifying ex-premier Nawaz Sharif was filed by family members of Sharif- children Hussain, Hassan and Maryam; and his son-in-law retired Captain Mohammad Safdar

Two review pleas were submitted in the supreme court on Friday. They have appealed for the July 28th decision to be held off until the review pleas were attended to.

One of the review petition has been filed against the verdict reserved by the three-member Panama Papers implementation bench while the other is against the five-judge decision of the Supreme Court.

The petition has expressed reservations against the six member Joint Investigation Team’s investigation and has called it incomplete and against the requisites of justice.

The petitioners plead that their individual rights have been compromised since the court itself didn’t consider their objections to the JIT’s report. Moreover, it complained that the investigation did not merit filing of references against the petitioners.

The petition claimed that since no accusation or evidence against Captain Safdar was found, NAB’s filing of reference against him was unjustified.

The petitioners questioned the authority of the five member bench on hearing the JIT report by saying that since the jurisdiction of two of the judges- Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Gulzar Ahmed- had expired after their dissenting aruguments on 20 April, the five member bench had no legal jurisdiction to hear the case.

Additionally, the petitions say that the appointment by SC of Justice Ijazul Ahsan as the ‘monitoring judge’ for the proceedings of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and accountability courts is against the fundamental rights of the applicants, and violates Articles 4, 10-A, 25 and 175 of the Constitution. It explained that the accountability court cannot operate independently after the appointment of an implementation judge.

Review petitions had already been submitted by Nawaz and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in the apex court against the verdict. Their pleas are similar to the ones taken up by the present petitioners, questioning his unceremonious disqualification under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar questioned SC’s authority to make a judgment about his assets being beyond his means in a petition filed under Article 184(3) of the Constitution.

On July 28, the Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif as the prime minister and ordered NAB to file corruption cases against him, his children, son-in-law and Dar in accountability courts.

The court had given NAB six weeks to file the references and the courts six months to wrap up proceedings in the high-profile case.

Source: The Nation