ISLAMABAD: Ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his children have raised objections to the Supreme Court’s decision to form a three-member bench to hear the Sharif family’s review petitions against its July verdict in the Panama Papers case.
On Friday, the SC had decided that a three-judge bench headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan and comprising Justice Azmat Saeed Sheikh and Justice Ijazul Ahsan will hear the review petitions filed by Nawaz Sharif and his children on September 12.
However, on Saturday, the Sharif family submitted an application in the apex court through their lawyer raising objections over the listing of the review petitions case before the three-judge bench and requesting for a postponement in the September 12 hearing.
It was argued that when a larger bench of five judges announced the verdict, which ousted Nawaz on July 28, the review petitions should also be fixed before the same bench.
The Sharif family argued that since the five-member bench’s order was the final one, their review petitions should be heard by a five-member too, instead of three judges.
“In terms of the legal and constitutional dispensation of the State of Pakistan, a learned bench of lesser strength cannot upset or pre-empt the decision of a larger bench of this august court,” the application added.
The Sharif family had submitted separate review petitions against the verdict, which led to Nawaz’s ouster from the premiership and the National Accountability Bureau filing references against him, his two sons, daughter and son-in-law.
The first petition provided 19 reasons, which, Sharif argues, provide proof for why he should not have been disqualified, and that merit the SC recalling its July 28 verdict against him. He has also pleaded that the court suspend the operation of the judgement till the final decision on his review petition.
In a separate review petition filed later, the former prime minister stated that the disqualification could have only been ordered on the basis of preponderant evidence. The court gave the verdict over a matter that was not even mentioned in the application, he argued.
On July 28, Nawaz Sharif stepped down as the prime minister of Pakistan after being disqualified from holding public office by the Supreme Court in a landmark decision on the Panama Papers case. The former prime minister, through a petition, argued that the decision passed by the court on July 28 should have been passed by a three-member bench as Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Gulzar Ahmed’s jurisdiction had expired after their dissenting judgement on April 20.
Published in Daily Times, September 10th 2017.
