Undecided Tareen may or may not challenge disqualification order

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Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) senior leader Jahangir Tareen remains undecided about filing a review petition against the Supreme Court’s (SC) judgement on December 15 that disqualified him from the membership of the National Assembly (NA) for hiding assets in his nomination papers.

According to a source close to the former PTI general secretary, Tareen was least interested in challenging the apex court’s verdict.

The source also said that Tareen had left for the United Kingdom to spend some time with his family after being in the lurch by his disqualification order. He also said that Tareen’s family members were trying to persuade him to bid farewell to politics, but no decision had been made by him on this front so far.

Moreover, the PTI leadership had been pressing Tareen to take the legal course and file a review petition against the apex court’s order, the source said, while adding that, “Three senior party leaders even advised the disqualified PTI leader to engage two members of the bench in a war of words because the same judges were also part of the Sadiq Baloch case where the court had ordered by-election in Tareen’s constituency.”

A close aide of Tareen while seeking anonymity, said that the former party general secretary felt dispirited with the attitude of some party leaders during the case and after the announcement of the SC judgment.

Insiders said that Tareen’s legal team had advised him to refrain from challenging the verdict as the chances of the decision were limited because the same bench would be hearing the review petition.

A senior lawyer, while commenting on Tareen’s disqualification, said that the PTI leader should learn valuable lessons from the Sharif family case and take the reasonable path by not approaching the apex court.

It merits mention here that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi had filed a petition against Tareen, seeking his disqualification from the NA on four different grounds.