Sharif family members file review petition against Panama case verdict
Former PM Nawaz Sharif and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar have already filed review petitions against the July 28 SC judgment
August 25, 2017
ISLAMABAD: Members of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's family have challenged the Supreme Court's July 28 verdict disqualifying Sharif and ordering corruption probes against them.
The former premier's children, Hasan, Hussain and Maryam, and son-in-law MNA Capt (retd) Safdar submitted on Friday two review pleas in the apex court.
They have pleaded that the July 28 verdict, and its implementation, be set aside till a decision on their review petitions is made.
One review petition has been filed against the three-judge decision and another against the five-judge decision of the apex court.
Sources said the review petition states that the Panama case Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probe was against the basic principles of justice.
There is no accusation or evidence against Safdar regarding the purchase of the Sharifs' London properties but still, the National Accountability Burea (NAB) was ordered to file a reference against him, the petition claimed.
It said further that the posting of a monitoring judge to oversee implementation of the verdict is against the law, explaining that the accountability court cannot operate independently after the appointment of an implementation judge.
The petitioners claim that their basic rights have been infringed upon as their objections to the JIT's final probe report were not taken into consideration. Moreover, it is stated that the JIT investigation was incomplete and thus cannot be used as a basis for filing a NAB reference.
It has been argued in the review petition that the original five-member bench could not have delivered the final verdict as two judges from that bench were no longer part of the proceedings since the JIT's work was overseen by the special three-member implementation bench.
Nawaz and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar have already submitted review petitions in the apex court against the verdict. Their pleas are similar to the ones taken up by the present petitioners.
On July 28, the Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif as the prime minister and ordered NAB to file corruption cases against him, his children, son-in-law and Dar in accountability courts.
The court had given NAB six weeks to file the references and the courts six months to wrap up proceedings in the high-profile case.
