Out-of-sync legal team embarrasses Imran’s party

ISLAMABAD: The apparent lack of coordination among members of the PTI legal team landed the party in trouble as the Supreme Court judges criticised it on Tuesday for its failure to come up with concise evidence against the Sharif family in the Panamagate case.

The lack of synergy can be gauged from the fact that initially the petition had been drafted by Irfan Qadir, Naeem Bukhari had filed it along with ‘documentary evidence’, while Hamid Khan is now pleading the case before the five-judge bench.



Sources in the PTI told The Express Tribune that Khan was not in favour of submitting a huge stack of documents which he was to defend before the judges.

Bukhari remained absent from the proceedings on Tuesday. A member of PTI’s legal team said he was in Peshawar, expecting that ‘nothing important’ would happen in Tuesday’s hearing.

Another member of PTI’s legal team, Babar Awan, had been reluctant to attend consultative meetings at Khan’s office but had showed up for all such meetings at PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s residence.

The PTI’s chief was also present in the front row of seats in the courtroom along with other party members when one of the judges, Justice Azmat Saeed, admonished the PTI legal team for not producing relevant documentary evidence against the Sharif family.

The stack of documents has expanded the scope of proceedings as besides PTI’s over 689 pages of ‘evidence’, Awami Muslim League’s Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has also submitted 600-page documents.

One of the PTI’s lawyers hinted that the bench might refer the matter to a one-member commission, a move the PTI intends to avoid since the start as it wants hearing of the case by a larger bench. “The way things are going, it seems that it will end up in a commission,” he said.



The PTI legal team also met later in the noon and briefed the party chief about the court proceedings and the future course of action. Faisal Chaudhry, a PTI lawyer, said they discussed Qatari prince’s letter and pointed out the contradictions in the government’s stance.

“The government now needs to prove it as the burden of proof lies on it,” he said.

Imran Khan presided over the meeting where the media strategy team also apprised the participants on trends on social and other media. Later in a press release, Imran said every new statement by the Sharif family was revealing a new lie. “The PTI will uncover all lies and bring out the truth,” he was quoted as saying.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 16^th, 2016.