Verdict to have wider repercussions

ISLAMABAD: Will the Supreme Court (SC) administer the same medicine to Imran Khan that it had given to Nawaz Sharif four and a half months back, when it hands down its ruling on Friday?

In the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman’s case, the “disease”, on the face of it, was more serious as per his “medical record” than the ousted prime minister’s “illness”. But it is anybody’s guess what will be prescribed for Imran Khan – downright acquittal, lifetime disqualification or one-time ineligibility.

If the PTI chief is exonerated, he will be unprecedentedly ecstatic and will be unstoppable to indulge in his favourite refrain that he is a clean man while his opponents are sleazy. It will be debatable whether or not his discharge will give a fillip to his politics as he has already exhausted almost all of his cards.

But if he is disqualified, not only his politics but that of the PTI will be doomed as he has none to fall back on like Nawaz Sharif, who has a large bevy of leaders who, with his patronage, can steer the party out of the present tempest. With Imran Khan’s ouster, his party will face the dangers of disintegration as no other stalwart is in a position to spearhead it. One-time expulsion as Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) member of the National Assembly, Justice (retd) Iftikhar Cheema, faced at the hands of the Supreme Court, will leave a stigma on Imran Khan’s career, but it will be temporary and a sort of relief for him.

If the PTI chief was freed from the charge, the PML-N will hammer the point more vociferously that there are different standards for different politicians – very strict, disastrous for its chief but very mild for his main antagonist. It will use such outcome to reinforce its line that justice has not been done to it and this process continues unabated.

Whatever the judgment will be, it will certainly be compared with the Panama verdict that threw Nawaz Sharif out as the prime minister on July 28. Parallels are bound to be drawn because of the political nature of the two cases involving chief adversaries. The comparison will become all the more essential when one party – Nawaz Sharif – has been pushed out of the ring. The deposed premier naturally wants the same treatment to his archrival at the hands of the apex court although he continues to find fault with the ruling against him.

There are striking similarities between the allegations against Nawaz Sharif and the PTI duo including Jehangir Tareen. The two sets of petitions had been filed in quick succession back in 2016, but they were not clubbed by the top court to hear them together. The plea against Nawaz Sharif was decided at a fast track while the complaint against Imran Khan took a lot of time.

This point was also once raised by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, who headed the three-member bench that heard the petition against the PTI chief and Tareen when he wondered why these pleas were not adjudicated together.

Rather some claim that the allegations of mis-declaration against the PTI couple are far more stronger as against Nawaz Sharif’s: It has been admitted by Imran Khan himself that his offshore company and bank accounts associated with it were never disclosed by him in his tax returns or nomination papers while Tareen though denies he ever mis-declared any of his assets, including his offshore company, his trust deed of the offshore firm as presented before the court established that he is the beneficial owner of the 12-acre British estate. On the other hand, in Nawaz Sharif’s case, the issue of non-declaration was made out of his un-withdrawn, receivable salary from his son’s Dubai-based company which, however, is disputed by leading lawyers as a valid ground for disqualification. It will definitely be the court’s judgment how to view the non-declarations by Imran Khan and Tareen.

What will be utmost important and instructive for all and sundry specifically the legal community will be whether the Panama judgment will be relied upon in the new ruling and how far the previous decision will be considered binding. The earlier bench consisted of five judges while the present panel comprised three justices.

Whatever the verdict of the chief justice’s bench will be, it will be as animatedly debated and commented upon as the Panama ruling is being heatedly discussed in the political and other circles. The decision against Nawaz Sharif is being consistently rejected by him and his party leaders since day one for being “partisan and biased”.

Had the judgment favoured Nawaz Sharif, the PTI would have denounced in his usual harsh language. Same will happen when the verdict regarding Imran Khan and Tareen will be announced. One party will shower lavish praise on it while the other will deprecate it. This is the downside of the adjudication of cases of political nature.

Imran Khan’s vow to go home quietly, quitting politics if he was hurt by the judgment is just a tall, shallow political slogan. His reaction will not be any different from that of Nawaz Sharif. He may then also ask why he has been ousted.

A primary point that would be noteworthy in case of an adverse judgment against the PTI leaders or any one of them will be whether their qualifications, if preferred, will be judged on the touchstone of Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution or the formerly Representation of People's Act (now merged in the Elections Act 2017). The difference between the two provisions is that if one is declared ineligible under Article 62(1)(f), one is disqualified for life while in case of exercise of other option, one will attract only one-time unseating and the one so affected can immediately contest an election. It will also be seen whether the law will be so strictly and narrowly applied as was done in Nawaz Sharif’s case.

For obvious reasons, Nawaz Sharif has been eager to have an early judgment against Imran Khan and Tareen, and he expressed this desire when he said: verdicts against us are pronounced hastily; when will decisions against the corruption of these two PTI leaders and Aleem Khan come?

The tone and tenor of the five judges, who had heard the case against Nawaz Sharif, and the three justices, who held proceedings on the petition against Imran Khan and Tareen, was strikingly different. The previous ruling had precisely matched the remarks of the judges. The present bench took a month to come out with its ruling while the Panama panel had consumed 58 days to make its judgment public.