Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) members on Tuesday criticized Supreme Court's verdict in disqualification case against Imran Khan and Jahangir Tareen, saying the court adopted different yardsticks in cases of Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. Speaking on the floor of National Assembly, Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique said that there is a long list of the judgments which have been controversial and people have not accepted them.
"Unfortunately, it seems Nawaz Sharif and his family are being driven out of politics while Imran Khan and his friends are being given relief through the Supreme Court verdicts," he said. The minister accused Imran Khan of taking the political matters and issues like Panama Papers to the court instead of battling them out in the public.
"Different benches of the same court have given different verdicts in separate cases of Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan while the law is same for all," he said. Rafique said the Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif for not withdrawing salary from a company of his son while Imran Khan has been given a clean chit despite the fact that he had repeatedly admitted having the offshore company.
"Jahangir Tareen has been disqualified in the case but no JIT (joint investigation team) has been constituted to further probe the matter," he said; questioning, would this verdict also be included in list of the controversial decisions by the apex court.
He said that National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was directed to file a reference against Maryam Nawaz just on suspicion of being beneficial owner of two offshore companies - Nielsen and Nescoll. The minister also questioned as to how judge of accountability court can work independently when the Supreme Court has appointed a monitoring judge to take regular reports about the cases.
Talking about foreign funding case against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, he said the court has barred the Election Commission of Pakistan from going beyond five years time in the case while everybody knows the PTI's foreign funding issue begins in 2010-11.
"If a crime is committed five years ago, should it not be investigated?" he questioned. Speaking on the same issue, Minister for Privatization Daniyal Aziz also criticized verdict of the Supreme Court given in PTI chief Imran Khan and Jahangir Tareen's cases.
"This is an old film which is being run again," he said, questioning the court's different parameters in Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan's cases. Aziz said that an impression is being given that across the board accountability is being done, but the fact is that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has locked down its provincial accountability commission and Sindh government has scrapped the accountability law altogether in the province.
He said that Jamaat-e-Islami had filed a petition in the Supreme Court against all those 450 persons named in the Panama Papers, but the court is yet to take up this petition. The minister said the court had thrown out petitions of Jamaat-e-Islami and Imran Khan against Nawaz Sharif terming them frivolous, but later the same petitions were taken up after Imran Khan's call for Islamabad lockdown.
Jamaat-e-Islami member Sher Akbar, however, expressed disappointment over speeches by the ruling party members against the Supreme Court. "It seems a movement for destruction of judiciary has begun which is not in the best interest of the country," he said.
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