The Lahore High Court here on Tuesday decided to serve notices on politicians and others through newspapers, asking them to submit their replies in response to a petition urging the court to direct respondents to bring their foreign assets back to Pakistan.
Politicians and other respondents include Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his wife Kalsoom Nawaz and son Hussain Nawaz, PTI Chairman Imran Khan and his ex-wife Jemima Goldsmith Khan, former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his wife, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, former President Asif Ali Zardari, Malik Riaz Hussain of Bahria Town, interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Ijazul Haq, Humayun Akhtar Khan, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Faisal Saleh Hayat, Pervez Elahi, PML-Q Chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Sindh Governor Ishratul Abad, Ghulam Mustafa Khar, Rehman Malik, Fazalur Rehman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, former president General Pervez Musharraf Retd), PPP senator Aitzaz Ahsan and his wife Bushra Aitzaz, and Asma Jahangir.
Javed Iqbal Jafree had filed a petition in 1996 against political leaders and later amended it and added more names to the list of respondents. Earlier, the court was told that respondents Nawaz Sharif, Kalsoom Nawaz and Hussain Nawaz and Malik Riaz had refused to receive notices while Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain also refused to accept notice but he had been served a notice through affixation. Moreover, service of one of the respondents Shah Mahmood Qureshi could not be effected due to non-availability on the ground of given address while Mian Shahbaz Sharif and Yousaf Raza Gillani had been served notices.
The court, however, directed the office to delete the name of Benazir Bhutto as she is no longer in this world. The court observed that the petition was of public interest and as such it was appropriate that the respondents be served notices through proclamation in newspapers in their personal capacity with directions to file replies on or before the next date of hearing.
The petitioner alleged that the respondent politicians transferred at least 300,000 million US dollars to foreign countries through money laundering. He said by doing this the politicians caused a huge loss to national exchequer. He said these politicians had not yet submitted in the court their affidavits in response to money laundering charges despite repeated court orders. He asked the court to issue directions to these politicians to bring back their assets to Pakistan.