LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday decided to start ex parte proceedings against 61 politicians in relation to a case against alleged illegal transfer of assets to foreign countries.

Justice Ameenuddin made the call during the hearing of a petition filed by Advocate Javed Iqbal Jafree which said that prominent politicians including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, PTI chairman Imran Khan and former president Asif Ali Zardari had transferred their assets to foreign countries via illegal means.

The petition had requested the court to issue orders to bring the allegedly illegally transferred assets back to Pakistan.

The order disables the politicians who failed to submit their affidavits in response to the court's directive to declare their assets from defending themselves and will affect high profile politicians including the premier, the Punjab chief minister, Imran as well as PPP’s co-chairperson Zardari.

Earlier on September 2, only three out of the 64 initially directed had filed affidavits in this regard. These included Senator Aitzaz Ahsan, his wife Bushra Aitzaz and former chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Qamar Zaman Chaudhry.

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However, during today’s hearing, Advocate Jafree pointed out that Mr and Mrs Ahsan and the former NAB chairman had not submitted any details on the foreign assets they had in possession, following which the court ordered the three to file details of their foreign assets by the next hearing.

The court decided to begin ex parte proceedings against the politicians who had not submitted their assets' details and ordered Director General Federal Investigative Agency (FIA) Ghalib Ali Bandesha, Punjab Advocate General Hanif Khatana and Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt to submit an affidavit declaring details of the investigation that has taken place into the case so far.

The case was subsequently adjourned to September 29.

Earlier in June, the LHC had issued notices to politicians, including the prime minister, on a petition seeking directions for the politicians to bring their foreign assets back to Pakistan.