The Supreme Court has shared details submitted to it by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) regarding its investigation against the persons named in Panama Papers with Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs. Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Saleem Mandviwalla told Business Recorder that a few days back the committee had written a letter to Supreme Court of Pakistan requesting it for provision of a copy of the record submitted by FBR in Panama Papers case.
"We have written a letter to Supreme Court of Pakistan requesting provision of the record of FBR shared with the apex court and registrar agreed to provide the record shortly", he said. He said that he had handed the letter to Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Advocate Supreme Court Sardar Latif Khan Khosa who approached registrar Supreme Court for the record. "To my knowledge, Latif Khosa has collected the record on the committee's behalf," he said.
He further said that the committee had directed the FBR several times to provide it with all the record regarding its investigations against the persons named in the Panama Papers which the FBR official refused to share with the committee. Upon receiving the record, he said the committee will start its investigations in Panama Leaks.
In July 2017, the FBR had refused to share tax information provided to the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on Panama Leaks with the Senate Standing Committee on Finance, saying that law didn't allow it to do so. The committee sought tax record from the FBR to establish whether there was any veracity in accusations of tampering/structuring of record by the FBR before submission to the JIT. A petition was also moved by Senator Azam Swati, drawing attention of the committee towards this issue claiming that he had credible information of tampering of tax record by the income tax officials.