ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), which wholeheartedly accepted the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Panama Papers case just a day earlier and distributed sweets among its workers, is now considering filing a review petition against the apex court’s decision to constitute a joint investigation team (JIT).

“We will hold a party meeting to discuss whether we should go for a review or not,” PTI chairman Imran Khan told reporters outside Parliament House on Friday.

“We will consider this option because the Supreme Court has already called [the institutions tasked with the probe] ‘paralysed’,” he said, in an apparent change of heart.

The remarks came after Mr Khan, who made a rare appearance at the National Assembly on Friday, was not allowed to speak on the floor of the house.

It was the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) that rejected the Supreme Court’s decision to form a JIT and urged all three petitioners — Imran Khan, Sirajul Haq and Sheikh Rashid — to file a review petition to seek a judicial commission instead of a JIT.

But PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry told Dawn there was no question of filing a review petition. Another senior party leader, who did not wish to be named, said: “This (the review petition) was an idea that was discussed, but no final decision has been made in this regard.”

PPP calls on all petitioners to seek review of decision in Panama Papers case; Aitzaz claims ISI won’t grill PM; ISPR says integrity of armed forces is beyond reproach

Mr Chaudhry said the party had already accepted the decision, adding: “We demand the implementation of the Supreme Court’s orders and the findings of the JIT should be shared with the petitioners periodically.”

He said the PTI had decided to file a reference against National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry before the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) in the light of the apex court’s observations. “We will file it by Monday,” he said.

In his remarks from the media dais outside Parliament House, Mr Khan gave a call for a public meeting in the federal capital next Friday (April 28), in a bid to exert more pressure on the prime minister to resign.

The PTI chief said he wanted to speak on the floor of the house, but the deputy speaker prevented him from doing so.

Mr Khan alleged that since the billions Nawaz Sharif had accumulated were at stake, the latter would never permit the institutions working under him to properly investigate the case.

“After the humiliating comments passed against Nawaz Sharif by the Supreme Court judges, he has no justification to remain in office anymore,” Mr Khan said, adding that PML-N leaders had celebrated the verdict without actually reading it.

He also said the Supreme Court had not given a clean chit to Maryam Nawaz, adding that the PTI’s allegation that she was the beneficial owner of the London properties would be investigated by the JIT.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar will also be investigated, since he was the one who confessed to money laundering on behalf of the Sharif family.

After Mr Khan left the stage, PPP leaders Syed Khurshid Shah and Aitzaz Ahsan took the podium and also demanded the prime minister’s resignation.

Mr Shah said that the country’s institutions would be destroyed if Nawaz Sharif did not resign, while Mr Ahsan regretted that institutions were always more lenient towards the PML-N.

The Senate opposition leader recalled the ineffective JIT that was constituted to probe the Model Town case, and pointed out that the PML-N had engineered an attack on the Supreme Court, but still managed to get away with it.

He also urged all three petitioners in the Panamagate case to file review petitions against the JIT. To a question about the JIT, Mr Ahsan argued that had a judicial commission been formed, he would have personally cross-examined the prime minister.

“Who will cross-examine [the PM] in this JIT? They are all their own people. There will be an ISI man, but the ISI chief is [the Sharifs’] own man and a relative of theirs,” he alleged.

It was ostensibly this affront that prompted a late-night tweet from ISPR chief Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, which simply said: “Comments by few regarding head of premier [intelligence] agency are baseless, misleading and unwarranted. Integrity of armed forces is beyond reproach.”

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2017