Imran, Tareen submit fresh documents in apex court

Published October 17, 2017
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan chairs a meeting of the PTI’s core committee at Banigala on Monday.—Online
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan chairs a meeting of the PTI’s core committee at Banigala on Monday.—Online

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan and party’s secretary general Jahangir Tareen submitted on Monday fresh documents to satisfy the Supreme Court’s queries over the petitions seeking their disqualification.

While Mr Khan claimed that he had submitted “additional money trail documents” sought by the Supreme Court, Mr Tareen said that he had also submitted complete record of 18,000 acres of productive land.

Both leaders made the announcements about submission of the fresh documents before the apex court through their official Twitter accounts and later the party’s media office released a handout based on the tweets of the two leaders.

“Thanks to God Almighty and Jemima’s record keeping, today I submitted all additional money trail documents asked by the SC,” Mr Khan wrote on his official Twitter page.

“My record of pound sterling 672 (is) now before the SC in entirety. Meanwhile Nawaz Sharif (has) not provided any document beyond fraud Qatari letter of Rs300bn money laundering,” said Mr Khan in another tweet.

According to CJP, new documents will have relevance only when the papers being sought are provided

A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar had taken up petitions of Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi seeking disqualification of PTI chief Imran Khan and Jahangir Tareen over non-disclosure of assets, existence of their offshore companies as well as the PTI being a foreign-aided party.

The court has already completed hearing in the petition against Mr Khan whereas the hearing in the petition against Mr Tareen will again be held on Tuesday.

The petitioner’s lawyer Akram Sheikh had filed a rejoinder to the documents submitted by Imran Khan and argued that the PTI chief had attached excerpts of his ex-wife Jemima’s bank statement of Anglo Irish Bank to show receipt of 562,415 pounds, but regretted that just like all other statements of foreign banks attached by Mr Khan, it also failed to comply with the attestation and certification requirement laid down in Article 89 of Qanoon-i-Shahadat Order, 1984, read with Section 4 of the Banker’s Books Evidence Act, 1981.

Meanwhile, Mr Tareen tweeted on Monday that he had submitted a complete record of the land leased by him in Rahimyar Khan as directed by the SC.

“Complete record of 18,000 acres leased land with lease deeds, crossed cheque payments and revenue documents confirming ownership submitted,” Mr Tareen wrote on his Twitter account.

He also posted a video clip showing him go through some documents and the caption with the video reads “Checking and reviewing all record before submitting. 10 volumes and 9 copies each of all 10 as required by SC.”

During the previous hearing in the case against Jahangir Tareen, the Supreme Court had reminded the counsel representing Mr Tareen to furnish revenue records of his leased lands to establish that those who had leased out their lands to him were true owners.

The court had asked Sikandar Bashir Mohmand, the counsel for Mr Tareen, to submit Khasra Gardawari, Jama Bandi and other relevant revenue records showing how much money he had paid to the lessor to get lease of 18,566 acres of land in 2010 and evidence proving that he had earned around Rs1.6 billion agriculture income from the said land.

Justice Umar Ata Bandial, a member of the bench, had clarified to the counsel that the court was asking for the Khasra Gardawari, Jama Bandi etc to see whether the lessor claims the ownership of the lands leased.

Justice Faisal Arab had observed that since the client of the counsel was so meticulous in keeping records, he must have all the revenue records.

In the petition, Mr Tareen faces allegations that in 2010 he showed the revenue he earned and the tax paid before the FBR in tax returns, but he did not mention the same in his nomination papers submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

The counsel had assured the court that he would provide the documents being asked but at the same time requested the bench to give some consideration to the fact that all the payments Mr Tareen made to the lessors were through crossed cheques, adding that he could get affidavits from the lessors that they received so much funds from Mr Tareen.

But the court was not convinced and the chief justice wondered why the counsel was insisting on the affidavits and not the revenue records.

The chief justice had also told the counsel that the documents produced by the respondents would have relevance only when the papers being asked would be provided. The court reminded the counsel again that he had to furnish proof about the ownership of the lands of the lessors, evidence regarding leased lands, revenue records along with the copies of crossed cheques issued for the payments.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2017

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