Sarina Isa questions assets declaration by PM’s aide for accountability

In a review petition filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Sarina Isa has raised questions about the assets and liabilities of the prime minister’s aide for accountability.

Sarina Isa, the wife of senior judge, Justice Qazi Faez Isa, approached the highest court on Monday seeking a review of the Supreme Court’s June 19 order. In the petition, the judge’s wife posed over a dozen questions about the assets of Mirza Shahzad Akbar, the special assistant to the prime minister on accountability and interior, who also enjoys the status of the minister for state.

Late last week, the government of Pakistan made public statements of financial assets and nationalities of 15 special assistants to Prime Minister Imran Khan.

"The statement, as per his [Shahzad Akbar] practice is on a plain piece of paper, without date, not on oath, without verification and without signature,” Mrs Isa wrote in her petition, “This statement conceals more than it reveals.”

She further asks why Akbar’s financial statement does not include his CNIC, passport number, whether he ever held another nationality, his source of livelihood, income tax returns and the nationalities of his children.

“Do his [Akbar’s] tax filings and income-tax paid justify the assets (movable and immovable) he has accumulated?” she writes.

Mrs Isa then goes on to add that the government and the accountability unit, run by Akbar, had asked her husband to disclose not only his assets but that of his wife and non-dependent children. “Why is Mirza Shahzad Akbar not following the same with regard to his wife and children?”

The petition notes that while the special assistant listed his assets and that of his wife’s, in the country and abroad, he leaves out details such as the date of purchase of the properties, its present price and if inherited, then from whom and when.

Commenting on the June 19 order by the Supreme Court, directing the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to look into the nature and source of funds of the Justice Isa’s wife and children, she writes that by directing the FBR to issue notices “the Court has assumed executive powers and functions, which, with utmost respect, is not permitted under our constitutional framework.”

Sarina Isa also requests the court to review the Order and set aside “paragraphs 3 through 11 of the Impugned Order and to do so to mutatis mutandis in the detailed reasons/judgment.”