SC adjourns Panamagate hearing till January, PTI announces boycott of commission

SC adjourns hearing of case till January next year

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Friday adjourned the hearing of the Panaamagate case till January next year.

During the hearing, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf  announced to boycott Panamagate proceedings if the Supreme Court formed a judicial commission to probe the case. "PTI will not accept the formation of a commission and if the court constitutes it then we will boycott proceedings," PTI counsel Naeem Bukhari told a five-judge bench hearing the case.

The legal team of the Sharif family, on the other hand, said it was in favour of the formation of a commission.

The bench agreed not to form the commission. However, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa said the Chief Justice of Pakistan will retire at the end of this month and will not be part of any bench after full court reference.  The court in its order said the case will be reheard by a new bench as incoming Chief Justice Saqib Nisar will have the power to reconstitute it.

Following this, the top court adjourned the proceedings of the case till the first week of January.



'Case will be steered to a logical conclusion'

Meanwhile, Imran Khan said they have pledged that the case will be taken to a logical conclusion and reiterated that there was no need to form a commission to probe Panamagate. “PTI earlier referred to a document proving that Maryam Nawaz was the beneficiary owner of Nescol Ltd and Nielsen Enterprises Ltd,” Imran said and questioned, “Why didn’t the Sharif family disputed the documents earlier.”

PTI chairman further said that the premier must know that the case will not be forgotten, saying that the latter was facing the court for the leaks.

On Thursday, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan rejected the Supreme Court’s proposal to form an inquiry commission to probe into the Panamagate case, saying the existing top court bench led by the Chief Justice can decide the case on a day-to-day basis.

The apex court was hearing a slew of petitions, including those filed by the PTI in the wake of the Panama Papers, which revealed that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s children were among those influential people from around the world who had stashed money in offshore companies.

During the last hearing of the case on Wednesday, the SC gave the PTI and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz two options – either to go for the formation of a fact-finding judicial commission for in-depth investigations or to continue with the five-judge bench currently hearing the case.



The PTI had sought time from the court to deliberate on the proposal.

However, after marathon deliberations on Thursday, the PTI announced that it would seek adjudication of the Panamagate case by the SC’s larger bench as there is no need to form a judicial commission to probe the ‘almost decided’ case.