Tareen disqualification case: Counsel fails to submit lease record of agriculture land

ISLAMABAD: The counsel of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Jahangir Tareen, Sikandar Bashir Mohmand, on Tuesday failed to submit the lease record of agriculture land owned by the leader, citing a shortage of time as the reason.

He informed the bench that 18,500 acres were acquired by his client in 2010 on lease. The counsel further said Tareen grows sugar, mangos, and cotton on his farms and then set up a sugar mill in 2002.

Mohmand added that the PTI leader has been an agriculturalist since 1978.

A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, is hearing the petition filed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi seeking the disqualification of Tareen and PTI Chairman Imran Khan for non-disclosure of his assets and ownership of offshore companies.

The chief justice remarked that the lease agreements are not registered and fail to mention where and how much the land in question is. 

"You need to satisfy us that the person from whom land was taken on lease was the owner of the land. We want to see the record of the revenue department first, as only that will tell the situation on the ground," the chief justice observed. 

Justice Umar Ata Bandial observed that suspicion is arising that the land may have been procured in someone else’s name. 

At the last hearing on October 5, the bench, while observing discrepancies in Tareen's assets, had sought the record of the 18,564 acres of land.

Tareen is guilty: PML-N 

Privatisation Minister Daniyal Aziz, speaking to the media outside the court, said Jahangir Tareen has admitted his wrongdoings in front of the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. 

Meanwhile, State Interior Minister Tallal Chaudhry said Tareen and Imran Khan are already disqualified MNAs, what's left is just a court stamp on their disqualification. 

Addressing the media afterwards, PTI Spokesman Fawad Chaudhry said the cases against Tareen will go into the trash bin.