SC to hear petitions against Imran, Tareen on May 13

Three-judge bench, headed by CJP Mian Saqib Nisar, to take up both the constitutional petitions

ISLAMABAD: After announcing its judgment in the Panamagate case, the top court has fixed two constitutional petitions seeking disqualification of the PTI chief, Imran Khan, and its general secretary, Jahangir Tareen, for their alleged wrongdoing including concealment of income in nomination papers.

The Supreme Court’s three-judge bench – headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar – will take both the constitutional petitions on May 3.  The partitions were filed last year by PML-N leader Hanif Abbasi – who lost the NA-56 Rawalpindi seat to Imran Khan in 2013 polls.

The former CJP Anwar Zaheer Jamali had held a couple of hearings of the case. However despite several hearing requests by Abbasi’s counsel Akram Sheikh, the court had preferred not to fix it along with Panamagate case which was dealing with Sharif family’s offshore properties.



The counsel had also requested the SC to form a larger bench for hearing the case.

The PML-N leader’s petition claims that during her time in Pakistan, Jemima Goldsmith –Imran’s first wife – did not file her income tax, adding that this showed that she was in fact a dependent on her former husband and had no taxable income.

“In the light of the foregoing, [Imran] was obliged to declare assets owned by Goldsmith in his own wealth statements, but [he] failed to do so, in violation of the mandatory provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance (ITO),” says the petition.

The petitioner contends that Imran was also required to declare his wife’s assets as she was his dependent, but he failed to declare any such thing before the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in any of his nomination papers during the relevant period.



The petitioner also contends that Tareen violated the Representation of Peoples Act by not fully declaring his offshore holdings in his statement of assets and liabilities filed before the ECP, along with his nomination papers for contesting 2013 general elections.

He also demands that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), and the ECP independently probe the ‘false’ financial declarations, misappropriation and tax evasion by both the leaders.

Imran and Tareen – respectively represented by Naeem Bukhari and Sikandar Bashir – have already submitted their concise statements, wherein they have denied the allegations of tax evasion.

In his reply, the PTI chief has termed the accusations against him as baseless and requested the court to dismiss the petition. He has also criticised the FBR for investigating his taxes after 13 years. “I have been paying all my taxes for three decades now. I have never lied about the property I own,” he said.



Tareen, in his concise statement, has also rejected the petitioner’s claim that no ‘admission’ or ‘confession’ (express or implied) was ever made by him in relation to the subject.

Meanwhile, the SECP in its reply has stated that Tareen violated the Insider Trading Ordinance-1969 and the Companies Ordinance-1984 in the United Sugar Mills (USML) acquisition.

“He also made roughly Rs71 million gains but returned Rs73.1 million to the SECP — including fines and legal cost that the regulator incurred on investigating the case,” it says.

The SECP has requested the apex court that it has discharged its regulatory role vigilantly and diligently as it probed the entire matter which culminated into return of entire illegal gain and recovery of penalties for contravention of relevant provision of laws.

“It is respectfully prayed that this honourable court may decide the case as deemed appropriate.”