SC to announce Panamagate verdict tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) will announce on Thursday (tomorrow) the verdict in the Panamagate case in which the disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was sought for allegedly lying on the floor of parliament.

A five-member larger bench, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, and comprising Justices Ijaz Afzal Khan, Gulzar Ahmed, Sheikh Azmat Saeed and Ijazul Ahsan, will announce the reserved verdict on Thursday.

According to Supplementary Cause List issued by the apex court on April 20, the verdict in the Panama case will be announced at 2 pm. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan, Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed of Awami Muslim League (AML), and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Ameer Sirajul Haq had filed constitutional petitions, seeking disqualification of the prime minister.

The court on February 22 had reserved the judgment after hearing all the parties with the observation that it would not leave the Panama case undecided and vowed to come up with a verdict regardless of the fact that the parties may or may not like it.

Justice Khosa, who was heading the bench, had observed that they were considering the instant matter from every conceivable angle. Since the court reserved the judgment in the matter, the general public, as well as media analysts including TV anchors and columnists, were bent upon giving their respective analysis as well as guessing the date for the announcement of the judgments.

The major theme that revolves around the whole of the case relates to the disqualification of the premier for what the petitioners, particularly PTI Chief Imran Khan and Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, had submitted in their petitions that after lying on the floor of parliament, Nawaz remained no more Sadiq and Ameen as required under the Constitution; hence, he should be disqualified.

Last year in April 2016 with a huge leak of 11.5 million documents from the database of a Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca, politicians, celebrities, businessmen and criminals who had set up offshore companies were revealed.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family came under fire at home with opposition parties accusing them of widespread corruption, after the names of PM’s children cropped up in the leaked documents from the Panamanian law firm.

Opposition hopeful

While welcoming the announcement of the verdict date, the PTI spokesperson said ‘The decision will reflect the will of the people of Pakistan’.

JUI-F chief Fazl ur Rehman, who is also the collation partner of PML-N, predicted nothing unusual from the Panama case and said nation’s time is being wasted on a non-issue.

Setting aside all the speculations, PML-N leader Talal Chaudhry said there’s nothing to worry about as this case is all political and an attempt to dislodge Nawaz government. The verdict will not affect the prime minster, he said.

Important meetings

The ruling party has convened a party meeting today in the Federal Capital to decide the future course of action after the verdict. PM Nawaz Sharif will chair the meeting.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari have also summoned the party leadership to Islamabad. The PPP sources said that the decision has been taken to discuss the situation to arise after the SC verdict in the Panamagate scandal.

They said that the party’s legal advisers had also been asked to stay in the capital.