ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court hearings in disqualification pleas against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and its Secretary General Jehangir Tareen filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi, opening on May 3, are going to evoke equal public attention, if not more than what the now concluded proceedings against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had got.
At a meeting chaired by the premier, it was decided to vigorously pursue not only these petitions but other new cases to be instituted against the PTI chief in the wake of his Rs10b bribery offer allegation against the Sharif family.
Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar will head the three-member bench comprising Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Faisal Arab.
On November 3 last, Hanif Abbasi filed two constitutional petitions -- No.35/2016 (regarding Panama Papers) against the PTI chief and (No.36/2016 (regarding Panama Papers) against Tareen -- under article 184(3) of the Constitution. They have now been fixed for hearing.
Some of the expansive legal and constitutional assertions advanced by the lawyers of Imran Khan and the Sharif family in the Panama case may be frequently referred to in the arguments in these petitions although the facts of the two cases are different.
But the issues of offshore companies that were disclosed in the Panama Papers or otherwise and their declaration or non-declaration by their owners in their tax returns and candidacy papers filed for contesting elections are the same.
On Friday, the top court admitted the petitions to hold regular proceedings on them. The back-to-back proceedings for 26 days, spanning some six months, against the premier and his children remained under unprecedented public focus because the prime minister and his children were the defendants.
The instant petitions are also likely to be under immense public glare as they relate to the offshore companies of Imran Khan and Tareen, who kept attacking Nawaz Sharif and his family members during the previous court hearings.
Abbasi sponsored the petitions obviously with the approval of his top party leadership after the apex court had opened proceedings on the pleas against the prime minister. His lawyer Akram Sheikh had made more than one attempt that these pleas were clubbed with Imran Khan’s petition against Nawaz Sharif but the five-member bench had not agreed. The PML-N had desired that both sets of pleas are simultaneously adjudicated upon as they pertain to a somewhat akin matter of offshore companies and the same constitutional clause (184(3)) has been invoked.
When the highest judicial forum held comprehensive day-to-day hearings, almost the entire nation remained glued to TV screens to know the latest news coming out of the courtroom, which exhibited unparalleled public interest.
There is a strong possibility that the same kind of curiosity and alertness will prevail when regular proceedings will open on the new petitions. In his pleas, Abbasi prayed to the top court to direct the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for disqualification of Imran Khan and Tareen over tax evasion and non-declaration of offshore companies in their nomination papers. He claimed that the PTI chief violated the election and tax laws by not declaring his offshore company - Niazi Services Limited (NSL) - in his statement of assets and liabilities filed with the ECP in 2013.
He stressed that the NSL was alive till October 1, 2015 but Imran Khan failed to disclose his ownership interest in it and later admitted during a presser at Heathrow Airport London, on May 14, 2016. He alleged that the PTI chief misused the amnesty scheme introduced by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) in 2000 for taxpayers to launder the undeclared flat in London worth Rs2,000,000, which in fact was not owned by him but by his offshore company. He said that the subsequent investment by him from the sale of that flat was illegal and liable to be probed and taxed by the FBR under the tax law.
Abbasi stated that the PTI chief had gifted Rs6.5 million to his ex-wife Jemima Khan in 2001-2002 and with that amount she had purchased 45 kanals in Mohra Noor, Bani Gala, Islamabad. Besides that land she also bought 255 kanals in the same area and later transferred it in Imran Khan’s name. He claimed that the PTI chief in his wealth statement before the FBR declared the land as gift.
The petitioner further claimed that Tareen had misguided the ECP and the FBR by concealing details of his offshore company, submitting false declaration of assets of agricultural income while filing tax returns in 2010 and nomination papers in 2013. He alleged that Tareen deliberately overstated his agriculture income to the FBR. He charged that the PTI leader was involved in tax evasion of agricultural income as he had over-declared income from agricultural sources which was an attempt to unlawfully evade income tax.
