Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has reserved its judgement on the Panamagate case, wherein Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification as a member of the National Assembly is sought by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Awami Muslim League (AML).

The top court’s five-judge larger bench, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, has been hearing the Panamagate case since last month and a total of 26 hearings were conducted in which documents comprising more than 20,000 pages were produced before the court by petitioners and the Sharif family.

After the conclusion of arguments from petitioners and respondents on Thursday, Justice Khosa observed that this was not a case in which a short order could be passed.

He further said that as around 25,000 pages were submitted so the judges would look into each and every aspect of those documents after which a judgement will be passed in accordance with the constitution and law.

Regarding the authenticity of submitted documents, Justice Khosa, however, hinted that if those documents were objected to on the grounds of validity then 99.9 percent of the documents out of 25,000 would be ‘thrown away’. He observed that none of the documents submitted by the parties in the case had come from reliable sources.

During the hearing, another member of the bench, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, observed that everyone had to be ‘buried in their own grave’ so the judgement had to be given in accordance with the law and without looking at outside wishes and opinions.

“This is so that a judge even after 20 years can read our judgement and say that the judgement was made by the book,” Justice Khosa further added.

“The problem is that the meaning of justice has gone missing and a trend has been developed in society that if a judgement is not in someone’s interest, they claim the judge is bribed or the judge is not competent enough to deal with the case,” Justice Khosa observed, further adding that if a judgement comes in favour of the litigant then he says there can be no better judge.

The jam-packed courtroom witnessed the final rebuttals of Naeem Bukhari and Taufiq Asif.

Revisiting the various aspects of the case, Bukhari said that the Sharif family had failed to provide an explanation regarding the establishment of Gulf Steel Mills in Dubai in 1974. He said that the mill’s liabilities exceeded 63 million dirhams and it was not substantiated by the defendants how those liabilities were settled.

Regarding the signatures of the premier’s daughter Maryam Nawaz, the counsel claimed that the signatures were genuine.

The bench seemed divergent at this juncture, as Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, another member of bench, asked how the bench could verify the authenticity of signatures.