Pakistan: Nawaz Sharif files three petitions in Supreme Court against Panama Papers verdict
In his appeal, Sharif argued that the July 28 decision by the five-judge bench should have been given by a three-member bench.
Pakistan’s ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday filed three petitions in the country’s Supreme Court, asking the apex court to review its verdict in the Panama Papers scandal that resulted in his disqualification, reported Dawn.
Sharif’s lawyer Khawaja Harris filed the three review appeals, in reply to the petitions filed by Imran Khan, Sheikh Rashid and Sirjul Haq.
On July 28, Nawaz Sharif was forced to quit after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding office for life over a corruption scandal stemming from the Panama Papers leak in 2016. The documents had revealed that his family owned several illegally acquired offshore properties and businesses. The judges had said that Sharif had cheated the Parliament and the courts, and was not fit to hold the position. It was a unanimous decision by the five-judge bench headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan and comprising justices Sheikh Azmat Saeed, Asif Saeed Khosa, Ijazul Ahsan and Gulzar Ahmed.
In his appeal, Sharif argued that Justice Khosa and Justice Ahmed’s jurisdiction had expired after their dissenting judgement on April 20 and the July 28 decision should have been given by a three-member bench.
“By signing the the final order of the court on July 28, Justice Ahmed and Justice Khosa have actually passed two judgments in the same case, which is unprecedented in judicial history,” read the petition.