Pakistan

Nawaz faces another disqualification reference

ECP says all references will be heard after appointment of its members

Our Correspondent July 01, 2016

ECP says all references will be heard after appointment of its members. PHOTO: AP

ISLAMABAD: Famed cleric Dr Tahirul Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) on Thursday filed a reference against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with the Election Commission of Pakistan seeking his disqualification for concealing his assets, following in the lead of the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

The position taken by PAT is similar to the previous references filed with the ECP that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has violated the law by not disclosing assets he and his dependents purportedly own outside the country.

After mentioning some details from the Panama Papers, PAT claimed that the prime minister had been mentioning his daughter Maryam Safdar as his dependent, but he did not disclose what assets and liabilities she had outside Pakistan.

According to the PAT petition, Maryam was purported as a shareholder in offshore companies — Nielsen Enterprises Limited and Nescoll Limited — as claimed by the ICIJ.

Moreover, she had been obtaining loans from banks abroad. Similarly, the late Mian Muhammad Sharif, father of the prime minister, owned luxury Mayfair Apartments in the UK and the Hudaibiya Paper Mills in Pakistan. After his demise the shares of these properties were distributed among all his children, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

However, the prime minister had only mentioned the shares he inherited from the Hudaibiya Paper Mills in the nomination papers he filed to contest the last general elections.

Already, the PTI and PPP have filed two references with the ECP against the prime minister for his disqualification on the same grounds.

According to the ECP, all the references will be heard and decided after the appointment of ECP members and will remain pending till the commission is non-functional.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2016.

COMMENTS (1)

Khalid Latif | 8 years ago | Reply If hard and legally acceptable proofs have not been submitted to the election commission, by the petitioners, there will be no outcome, because the election commission is not in a position to investigate overseas matters. Nor does it have the means to do so. Every one knows that the taxes and assets should be in the revenue records. If money and assets were hidden and not declared by the tax payer, it's a crime. The tax data and the hidden wealth's detailed proof should be submitted in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. With this evidence, the court decision will come instantly. In the present case, if sufficient and legally accepted evidence has not been provided to the election commission, it will express inability to give a decision.

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