There are three ways Sharifs' legal team will challenge JIT report

The ruling family's lawyers have been continuously working with all the witnesses summoned by the JIT

ISLAMABAD: The Sharif family's legal team has come with a three-pronged strategy to challenge the report the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing into the ruling family's offshore assets will submit to the top court.

Sources privy to the Sharif family told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity that the legal team had been continuously working with all the witnesses summoned by the JIT.

These witnesses had been briefed before they appeared before the JIT and then also debriefed after their appearance,  insiders said.

They added that the legal team had made notes of all the questions that the JIT had asked, the answers it received and the behaviour of the team's members.



The challenges being prepared by the legal team will have three points to make the issue political as well as legal, sources explained.

The first part of the strategy is to attack the JIT on its conduct. PML-N leaders have already created an environment where they have questioned the whole process as well as JIT’s impartiality claiming that it actually did not know what allegations it was investigating.

Sources said there were a number of media stories that created doubts about the JIT.

The other important challenge will be questioning the Supreme Court bench itself.

In this case the legal attack will be directed at two judges -- Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Gulzar Ahmed --  if they are included in the bench that hears the final argument on the JIT report.

The argument that would be made here, according to insiders, is that the two judges had already made up their mind against the Sharif family and should not be a part of the bench.



The legal team is also contemplating filing a reference against Justice Khosa in the Supreme Judicial Council to put pressure on him and keep him out of the bench that hears the final arguments on the JIT.

Sources added that the legal team was also ready to immediately file a review petition in case the apex court bench disqualified the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family members.

This will help the Sharif family in giving hope to the electorate that Nawaz may still have a chance to make a comeback and also in keeping the party intact.