- Tareen’s counsel asks if his client to be disqualified for not knowing definition of ‘landholding’
ISLAMABAD: The counsel representing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) General Secretary Jahangir Tareen on Wednesday was told by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar that land─whether owned or leased─has to be declared in the election forms.
The chief justice was presiding over a three-member SC bench, comprising Justice Umar Atta Bandial and Justice Faisal Arab, which was hearing a petition filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi.
The petition seeks the disqualification of Tareen and PTI Chairman Imran Khan over the alleged non-disclosure of assets, existence of offshore companies, as well as receiving foreign funding for PTI.
The arguments in the court revolved around the 18,566 acres of land, which according to Tareen’s counsel at the previous hearing, was leased by his client in 2010. Tareen had earned around Rs1.6 billion agricultural income from the said land.
Defending his client, Advocate Sikander Mohmand argued that Tareen had declared the land owned by him in the nominations papers and had submitted his tax returns as well. However, he contested that the election forms do not contain a column for leased land.
Admitting before the court that Tareen had not mentioned in the election forms the 18,566 acres of leased land, Mohmand maintained that no misinformation was given in the papers. To this, the chief justice told the lawyer that the definition of landholding includes both owned and leased land.
In response, the lawyer agreed that according to the definition of landholding, his client was obligated to declare his leased land in the forms.
“Will Jahangir Tareen be disqualified for not knowing the definition of landholding?” the lawyer asked.
The petition against Tareen alleges that his client did not declare the leased land and points out discrepancies in his income, Justice Bandial told the lawyer.
The lawyer argued that the leased land had been declared on the tax returns which were submitted along with the nomination papers.
“We are not concerned about tax,” the chief justice said. “We are looking to see if income was declared.”
Tareen’s lawyer submitted that the court should ask the petitioner to challenge Tareen’s tax returns in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) as tax audit did not fall within the jurisdiction of the apex court. “The petitioner just wants to waste my client’s time,” Mohmand added.
The court told Mohmand that they are conducting disqualification proceedings at the core of which is the issue of misdeclarations in the election nomination forms.
Mohmand argued that the ongoing case will have an effect on the reference underway in the Lahore High Court against his client. In response, the chief justice said that even if a case is being heard somewhere else, the apex court cannot be restrained from examining it.
The hearing was adjourned until Thursday.
During Tuesday’s hearing, the SC had sought evidence that Tareen is not the owner of 18,500 acres of land but is instead using them on contract from a number of people.
Tareen’s lawyer told the court that only the name of the landowner appears on the records, not the name of the person farming the land.
Mohmand told the court that his client cannot be disqualified in relation to the matter pertaining to the payment of agricultural tax as there was no system of checking agricultural income in Punjab.
learned counsel for Tareen admitted before the SC that Tareen had not declared the leased land in his nomination papers , though he was obliged to but he argued that he did not know the defination of land holding .. It is a cardinal principal of law that ignorance of law is no excuse. The question is that after the admission , should the SC have proceeded to disqualify Tareen, in view of the judgement of the five members bench or waited for some other evidence ?and wasted much of its time .
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