405 days of Imran disqualification case: Where, when and what happened in this case?

ISLAMABAD: The country’s apex court is going to announce its judgment on Friday (today) in Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and Jahangir Tareen’s disqualification case after hearing 101-hour arguments presented by senior counsels of both parties in around 51 hearings of 405 days.

All eyes are set on the Supreme Court of Pakistan which heard top legal brains who consumed over 101 precious hours to wind up their arguments in this case in the Courtroom No 1. The three-member bench of the apex court hearing PML-N leader, Hanif Abbasi’s petition which sought the disqualification of PTI chief Imran Khan and Secretary General Jahangir Khan Tareen over non-disclosure of assets, existence of offshore companies owned by the respondents.

Both parties’ counsels cited references of more than 73 cases. They have also read about three dozen excerpts from judicial decisions of around a dozen different countries — India, United States of America, United Kingdom, Australia, Bangladesh, New Zealand and European countries, in particular.

Voluminous materials consisting of around 7,000 pages have been presented before the apex court. Naeem Bokhari, counsel for PTI chairman also presented references from five different books where Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar has also submitted before the top court as references.

The central point in this case remained: How did Mr Khan accumulate millions of dollars in the West as cricketer, and through which channels the money was transferred to Pakistan in 1980s to help him build Banigala Villa? Why did Imran Khan and Jahangir Tareen not declare their offshore companies in declarations submitted with the Election Commission of Pakistan and Federal Board of Bureau?

“You [Naeem Bokhari] has yet to answer some key questions — though we are going to reserve the judgment in this case — also in your client’s case — if we feel necessary,” observed Chief Justice while concluding the hearing on November 14, 2017. Before this happening, worthy judges observed, “Supreme Court remained quite handicapped in this case. Mr Bokhari —you have yet to provide some documents to justify 6 percent to 7 percent remaining money trail matters —some assets of NSL were also not brought on the record.”

Three judges asked around 237 striking questions from Akram Sheikh, counsel for Hanif Abbasi, Naeem Bokhar and Sikandar Bashir Mohamand, counsel for Mr Khan and Mr Tareen accordingly. Mr Akram Sheikh has been trying to find similarities attached to the Panama case where former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by the court. After the Panama case, this seems to be another important case of Pakistan’s history where counsels of both parties have presented thousands of voluminous materials (pages) in around 51 hearings of this case.

PTI chairman’s ex-wife Jemima Khan was named over 205 times by judges and counsels. She remained in focus in this case as the ‘Qatari Letter’ attracted masses’ attention in the Panama Papers case. Even once upon a time, an interesting situation created in the Courtroom No-I when worthy judges were searching for Naeem Bokhari who was not present in the court. It took him 65 minutes after judges asked the people concerned to trace him. This correspondent witnessed that it was Anwar Mansoor Khan who ensured the court that Mr Bokhari would be here after a while. Mr Anwar represented PTI in foreign funding case, another key component of the said case. Mr Bokhari argued for a week i.e. 17 hours. He cited 152 cases including judicial precedent from 18 different countries’ courts.

Naeem Bokhari consumed more than 45 hours to wind up his arguments while Mr Sikandar took around 18 hours to assist the SC. Mr Bokhari produced a plethora of documents including Ashley’s letter, different land agreements, disputed documents, some evidentiary documents of money trail, invoices of charges paid by Jemima Khan and a couple of new affidavits from Rashid Khan. Mr Sikandar produced thousands of pages consisting of record of around 1867 acres land, an offshore company and gifts received from his son Ali Tareen.

Mr Anwar spent 11 hours to convince judges that PTI was not accepting foreign funds and that component of this case directly linked with the ECP under political parties’ order. Rest of the time was consumed by Mr Akram who was assisted by another senior lawyer in this case as well.

The apex court also raised questions about authenticity of hundreds of unverified documents came from PTI top leadership & law of evidence, acknowledging importance of ‘Sadiq’ and ‘Ameen’. The petitioners and respondents focused on Articles 62, 62(1)(e-f), 63, 66, 69 and 184(3) in Imran Khan case while parties focused on Articles 62, 62(1)(e-f), 63, 66, 69 and 184(3),185, 187, 224 and 248 of the Constitution in Panama case.

This correspondent luckily witnessed proceedings of both cases — Imran Khan vs Hanif Abbasi and Panama Papers vs the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif in the apex court which heard Panama case for over 126 days where top legal brains consumed around 111 precious hours of judges in 35 hearings.

Similar arguments were presented by Akram Sheikh who claimed that the ‘Respondent No-I’ committed such kind of the alleged mis-declaration in this case. Neither Mr Khan, nor any other top ranking party leader attended a single hearing in this case, while PTI chairman spent 94 hours in the courtroom by attending 32 of 35 proceedings of Panama case. Similarly, ex-premier Nawaz Sharif and his children did not attend a single hearing in Panama case. Some lawyers also found some genuine similarities in the intricacies which may threaten political future of top leadership of PTI. Top lead legal brains say, “Mr Tareen’s fate seriously hangs in the balance while Imran Khan may survive in this case.” Only the time will tell what the outcome of this case is today.