Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday submitted his response to the Supreme Court in Pakpattan illegal land allotment case. Sharif submitted the response in the capacity of the chief minister Punjab, a position which he held from April 1985 to August 1990 before being elevated to the post of the prime minister in November 1990.
The top court in December last year had constituted a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to probe the illegal transfer of a piece of land belonging to the Auqaf department in Punjab's Pakpattan district in 1985. On January 15, the JIT told the Supreme Court through its report that Sharif had illegally allotted 14,398 acres of Waqf property, which is attached to the shrine of Baba Farid-ud-Din Ganj Shakar in Pakpattan to one named Dewan Ghulam Qutab when he was the provincial chief executive.
A three-judge SC bench headed by then Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, upon receiving the JIT report, had asked Sharif and the Punjab government to furnish replies on the report within a fortnight. In his response, Sharif termed the JIT report 'one-sided' and based on 'mala fide intentions'. He prayed to the court to dismiss the JIT report which incriminated him in the illegal land allotment case.
Raising questions on the formation of the JIT headed by Hussain Asghar, Sharif said that the top court had constituted a three-member JIT on December 27 last year, which had to include one officer each from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB).
However, he said, the other two officers were not named in the JIT report. Moreover, the report doesn't mention the court's consent on the Terms of Reference (ToRs). He maintained that due to reasons mentioned above, it looked like the report was prepared solely by Hussain Asghar in contravention to the court's orders. The response also said that the JIT didn't contact Nawaz Sharif at any point during its investigations, which was "a violation of his fundamental rights".