Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage Marriyum Aurangzeb on Saturday said that the reservations of the Sharif family regarding the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) were legal and constitutional.

“Therefore, the Supreme Court of Pakistan must not only take notice of them, but should also address them on a priority basis,” the minister said, while talking to reporters.

“Any decision by the joint investigation team (JIT) without addressing the reservations of Sharif family by the SC will be incomplete,” she added.

She said that the Sharif family, notwithstanding their reservations and the suspicion-laden atmosphere, had adopted a legal and constitutional course as it firmly believed in upholding the sanctity of law and the constitution. “The family has been through the process of accountability during the PPP and Musharraf regimes and every time it has emerged unscathed from the rigours of the accountability processes. After passing through testing times, Nawaz Sharif was elected prime minister for a third time,” she said.

The minister expressed the hope that the prime minister would ultimately be vindicated and would emerge victorious from the current accountability process as well as from the court of the people next year.

She reiterated that the prime minister had created history by appearing before the JIT. “The allegations against the prime minister are absolutely baseless and false and his appearance before the JIT shows his abiding belief in upholding the law and the constitution,” she said. “The appearance of Shahbaz Sharif is also to reiterate respect for law and the Constitution,” she said.

She said that it was also obligatory on all the state institutions to uphold the law and the constitution as had been done by the prime minister.

The minister of state said that documents relating to the letter of the Qatari prince had also been submitted in the SC and the prince had also said that he firmly stood by the contents of his letter.

“Nobody can come up with or prove any case of corruption against the PM during his three stints in office. Similarly, not a single case of corruption has ever been reported against Shahbaz Sharif during his three tenures as chief minister of the Punjab,” she said.

To a question about the PTI’s threat to come out on the streets, the minister said that the party was trying to obstruct the process of development that had put the country on the road to a sustained economic growth.

She said that Imran Khan was an absconder from the anti-terrorist court, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the SC. “If he has the courage and any grain of conscience, he should come down from his temporary hilly abode to face the charges against him,” she said.

“Imran Khan is making tall claims about accountability, but when it comes to accountability of his own ministers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he closed down the Ehtesab Commission,” she said.

Marriyum said that all those, who had different charges against them, should also be put through the process of expeditious accountability.