ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) alleged on Wednesday that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz petition against Imran Khan was an attempt to complicate the Panama Papers leaks case with mala fide, motivated and bad faith and intent.
In a rejoinder submitted to a Supreme Court bench seized with the petition moved by PML-N leader Hanif Abbasi, the PTI said the petitioner had a personal grudge against Mr Khan since he had lost the election from Rawalpindi’s NA-56 constituency in 2013.
In his petition, Mr Abbasi had sought disqualification of Mr Khan and PTI secretary general Jehangir Khan Tareen for allegedly setting up offshore companies and concealing assets, including the London apartments. He also requested the court to declare the PTI a foreign-aided party.
“In fact Abbasi is a non-credible person and is an accused in corruption cases since being tried before NAB in the Ephedrine and Metro Bus Rawalpindi case,” the rejoinder said.
On Wednesday, the three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali again ignored the request of the petitioner’s counsel Akram Sheikh to club together the present case and the one about the Panamagate scam being heard by a five-judge bench.
When the counsel said he had filed a miscellaneous application requesting the court to allow the federal government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to be parties in the petition, the PTI objected to it.
The court, however, asked the respondents to furnish their written objections to the application and adjourned proceedings for next week.
Earlier, Anwar Mansoor, representing the PTI, regretted in the rejoinder that disputed issues had been raised in the petition by asking the court to declare the PTI a foreign-aided party and questioning the functioning of one of the biggest political parties of Pakistan that enjoyed the following of a large number of people both in the country and abroad.
“Such disputed questions of facts require evidence for just and proper determination before a court of law but the same is beyond the scope of the Supreme Court under its original jurisdiction of Article 184(3) of the Constitution. The matter is governed by the Political Parties Order 2002 and that there are alternative remedies available but coming to the Supreme Court under Article 184(3) is an attempt to bypass the course of law,” the reply said.
It said the petition was frivolous and moved with ulterior motives only to cripple the PTI by attempting to baselessly tarnish its reputation. “The haste of filing this mala fide petition for the fulfillment of ulterior motives is apparent.”
The rejoinder denied the notion that the petition had been filed to press matters of public importance with reference to the enforcement of fundamental rights that were ripe for adjudication and necessitated immediate intervention by the court. “The petition has not created any nexus what is the question of public importance with reference to the enforcement of which fundamental right that has been breached by the PTI.”
The reply also denied the allegations about concealment of sources of income and misrepresentation made to different states, functionaries and the people at large and said details were available on the party’s website as well as with the ECP.
Published in Dawn December 1st, 2016