Turning down the Registrar office's objections over the pleas filed in the wake of Panama Leaks, the Supreme Court Tuesday decided to take up four pleas including that of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) seeking disqualification of sitting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his son-in-law retired Captain Mohammad Safdar and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.
The PTI had urged the Supreme Court to declare Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif 'disqualified' from the National Assembly for allegedly concealing his assets in the wake of the Panama Papers. Filing the petition under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution, Imran Khan made Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) of Pakistan, through its Chairman, Federation of Pakistan through Secretary Law, Federal Interior Secretary, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), through its Chairman, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, Hussain Nawaz Sharif, Hassan Nawaz Sharif, Captain retired Muhammad Safdar, Member National Assembly, Senator & Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar as respondents.
Besides, the JI Ameer Sirajul Haq also filed a plea under Article 184(3) of the Constitution without mentioning the name of any politician or businessman involved in establishing offshore companies and made Federation of Pakistan through Ministry Parliamentary Affairs Islamabad as respondent on August 24. Barrister Zafarullah of the Watan Party and another lawyer of the Supreme Court, Tariq Asad, had also filed petitions in the matter.
However, Registrar of the Supreme Court questioned the maintainability of pleas and returned the petitions, declaring them frivolous. Challenging the Registrar's objections, the counsel for the PTI, Hamid Khan and Naeem Bokhari, JI counsel Asad Manzoor Butt, Watan Party's counsel Barrister Zafrullah and Tariq Asad urged Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali during in chamber proceedings, to remove the objections and fix their pleas for hearing.
The Chief Justice said in a short order, "Heard the ASCs, it seems that the office objections as to the maintainability of these petitions are ill-founded. These appeals are, therefore, allowed and, subject to all just exceptions, the office objections are set aside. The objection as regards the maintainability of these petitions, if any, will be examined by the court itself".