- Apex court to resume hearing on November 7
- Tareen ‘discretionary lifetime beneficiary’ for trust which owns 12-acres of property in UK
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) General Secretary Jahangir Tareen has submitted a ‘trust deed’ to the Supreme Court regarding the ownership of a 12-acre property in the UK in relation to the disqualification case against him.
A three-member Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, is hearing the case filed against Tareen by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi over alleged non-declaration of assets.
The apex court is scheduled to resume hearing of the petition on November 7.
The trust deed comprising 37 pages was submitted by Tareen’s attorney Sikandar Bashir Mohmand.
According to the documents, Tareen is a ‘settler’ for a trust which runs an offshore company, Shiny View Limited, and owns 12 acres of property in the UK.
The original trust deed has also nominated HSBC Bank (Pvt) Ltd as the trustee. The trust was created for 150 years in May 2011.
The documents also reveal that Tareen and his wife are the trust’s ‘discretionary lifetime beneficiaries’. According to the documents, Tareen has the power to direct the trustees to transfer the income from the trust fund to any one or more of the discretionary beneficiaries, including him.
In case of Tareen’s death, his wife, children and grandchildren will be named the discretionary beneficiaries.
The trust deed says, “All such directions shall be treated as revocable unless expressed to be irrevocable and shall continue until the settler dies or becomes incapacitated or (where the direction is revocable) the settler revokes the direction personally. Until and subject to and in default of any such directions the Trustees may, during the Trust period, pay or apply the income of the Trust Fund to, or for the benefit of, all or any others of them, that are for the time being in existence and in whatever shares, if more than one and in whatever manner generally that the Trustees may in their absolute discretion think fit.”
The PML-N legal team has claimed that Tareen will be disqualified as he had not disclosed the property in the UK while filing nomination papers before the Election Commission of Pakistan.
During the last hearing on October 25, the court had sought trust deed of Tareen’s UK property, which he had failed to provide during the earlier hearing as well.
The bench had observed the similarities between the Panama Papers case and Tareen disqualification case, saying the former also revolved around the issue of beneficial ownership and property being on the name of a trust deed.
Tareen’s counsel had defended his client, saying that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s son Hussain Nawaz’s trust was different from Tareen’s as his client was not a beneficial owner of the trust.
The chief justice had observed that the court had to be satisfied with whether Tareen was honest in declaring his assets to the ECP or not.
Justice Faisal Arab demanded that the documents pertaining to the Shiny Star View Limited Trust should be presented, to which the lawyer said that currently the details aren’t available but can be in case the court orders.
