Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Monday filed a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court (SC), seeking its directives for disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his son-in-law Captain (r) Muhammad Safdar and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar from the seats of the National Assembly over corruption and alleged tax evasion by establishing offshore companies.

The PTI chief also made seven other people as respondents in the petition, including premier’s daughter Maryam Safdar, sons Hussain and Hassan Nawaz, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the interior secretary and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

The PTI’s legal team, headed by advocate Hamid Khan and including Naeem Bokhari, Ahmad Awais, Yousaf Anjum and Muhammad Imad Khan, will plead the constitutional petition filed under Article 184(3), enforcement of fundamental rights.

However, after the SC termed Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI) identical petition as “frivolous and non-maintainable”, the PTI chief emphasised that tax evasion and looting of public exchequer was a matter of public importance, and needed to be heard under Article 184(3).

The petition stated that it was evident that “the matter raised herein is of grave public importance in relation to fundamental rights of the people; hence it mandates exercise of jurisdiction by the top court under Article 184(3)”.

“They (premier and his family) have looted the wealth of Pakistan, which belongs to the people of Pakistan, [they] are incapable and disinterested in securing the life, liberty and property of the people, [they] have destroyed the dignity of every Pakistani with the exposure of their shenanigans in Panama leaks and thereafter have made a mockery of freedom of association and parliamentary democracy, [they] manipulated the system to their personal advantage and have ensured that Article 25 is all but wiped out in their accountability and tax payments,” the party’s chief defended his stance of hearing the petition under the said article.

The petition also cited a book of Raymond Baker wherein it is stated that Nawaz Sharif had separately pocketed $418 million, from contracts to build highway from Lahore to Islamabad ($160 million), unsecured loans from banks ($140 million), government rebates on sugar exported by mills controlled by his business associates ($60 million) and falsely inflated invoices for production of wheat to a private company owned by his associate in Washington ($58 million). The report went on to state that the extent and magnitude of this corruption “is so staggering that it has put the very integrity of the country at stake”.

Their conduct, acts of commission and omission are violative of their oath of offices and by no stretch of imagination they can refer to themselves as honest or “ameen”, or living in accordance with Islamic moral standards, the petition cited the reference of Raymond Baker. The 27-page petition also reminded that the top court itself had set a precedent in a similar case, wherein former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was disqualified under Article 62 for covering up mega corruption.