ISLAMABAD – A larger bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa will resume hearing the Panama Leaks case on Friday.
During the last hearing, the Prime Minister’s lawyer Makhdoom Ali Khan presented evidence in the case. He said that Nawaz Sharif was not a director or shareholder of an offshore company, nor was he its beneficial owner.
The bench remarked that the Prime Minister had said his life was an open book, but “now we feel that several pages of that book are missing.” Justice Ijaz remarked that the records which the Prime Minister mentioned had not been produced. “We cannot decide what is true or false without looking at the records,” he said.
During today’s hearing, PM’s lawyer Makhdoom Ali Khan remarked that disqualification of the premier under article 62 of the constitution required a declaration from the court.
He said that the standards of disqualification didn’t change after the elections. He added that the disqualification over a fake degree can be handled at a tribunal level.
“Under Article 62, a person can be disqualified for hiding assets and holding a fake degree,” Makhdoom Ali said.
The issue of ineligibility could be raised at the time of the filing of nomination papers and after election the criteria of ineligibility could not be lowered, but application of co-warranto could be filed, he argued.
At this point in time Justice Khosa told Makhdoom that the cases he is referring to were against the election Commission not the tribunal.
