Imran’s stint with SC till Thursday’s ruling

ISLAMABAD:

The Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaf (PTI) has received much more relief from the courts as compared to its rival political parties particularly since the apex court announced its Panamagate verdict in July 2017.

Prime Minister Imran Khan in his address on Friday expressed disappointment over the Supreme Court order which declared National Assembly Deputy Speaker Qasim Khan Suri’s ruling against the no-confidence motion as well as dissolution of the National Assembly “unconstitutional”.

He also expressed disappointment over the judiciary for not taking notice of the alleged floor crossing and horse-trading.

Senior lawyers, however, wonder that despite realising the mistakes of his own legal team members, the PM is inciting party workers against judges who gave much relief to the PTI.

Lawyers, who witnessed the court proceedings, believe that there was no coherence in the arguments of the PTI counsels. Even Attorney General for Pakistan Khalid Jawed Khan did not defend the NA deputy speaker’s ruling. His focus was to convince the court to pass direction for fresh general elections.

Likewise, a senior member of the PTI legal team had dissented the whole plan regarding the deputy speaker’s ruling and dissolution of the National Assembly. Also, the PTI legal team could not provide minutes of the National Security Council meeting. The legal team did not provide material on the basis of which the deputy speaker gave the ruling on Article 5 of the Constitution.

A PTI lawyer revealed that the party leadership was not expecting such an order from this bench, which gave relief to the party leadership in several cases.

Now, “we are repenting that we should have requested for a full court to hear this case”, he added.

It is learnt that the legal wing had suggested PM Imran not to share diplomatic cypher otherwise he would be disqualified for lifetime.

During the tenure of former Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed, the PTI government did not face a tough time in any governance issue from the superior judiciary due to AGP Khalid Jawed Khan.

It is learnt that the PTI has decided to start agitation until announcement of the new general elections.

Even the opposition parties are being conveyed as either to accept demand of early general election or constitutional crisis.

Legal experts say that the PTI’s conduct shows that they are inviting extra-constitutional forces to intervene in the matter.

The PTI is apparently the biggest beneficiary of the Panamagate verdict passed by the apex court’s five-judge larger bench, headed by CJP Asif Saeed Khosa. The court had ousted Nawaz Sharif and decided to supervise trial against members of the Sharif family.

Whenever the PTI got into trouble, they approached the SC for relief during former CJP Gulzar’s tenure. Two presidential references were filed regarding interpretation of articles 226 and 63A of the Constitution. CJP Umar Ata Bandial had set aside the Peshawar High Court judgment wherein the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was directed to probe alleged corruption in the Bus Rapid Transit project.

Even due to the SC implementation bench’s deadline, the trial court convicted both Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz and they were sent to jail before the July 2018 general election. Later, a former high court judge alleged that judicial proceedings were manipulated in the Panamagate case.

During the last year of former CJP Mian Saqib Nisar, the PML-N faced a tough time in various ways. Three PML-N lawmakers Danyal Aziz, Talal Chaudhry and Nihal Hashmi were disqualified in contempt cases.

A number of the PML-N leaders like Nawaz, Shehbaz Sharif, Saad Rafique, Ahsan Iqbal and Pervaiz Rashid were summoned in connection with different governance issues and were grilled during tenure of Justice (retd) Nisar.

The PML-N lawyers believe that Justice (retd) Nisar’s remarks severely damaged the party’s reputation during the time when they were running a campaign for the July 25, 2018 polls.

Cases were also registered under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) against the PML-N and the PPP workers for using derogatory language against Justice (retd) Nisar.

Even the apex court disqualified two PML-N senators on account of holding dual nationalities. Later, the PTI got a majority in the Punjab Assembly and succeeded in winning the seats on time.

The PPP top leaders – Asif Ali Zardari and Faryal Talpur – were also behind bars because of the apex court’s suo motu proceedings in the fake accounts case. The court also shifted the trial of Zardari and Talpur from Sindh – the PPP’s political bastion – to Punjab.

On the other hand, PTI chief Imran Khan was declared “Sadiq” (truthful) and “Amin” (trustworthy) by the apex court led by Justice (retd) Nisar.

Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, PM’s adviser Zulfikar Bukhari and Imran Khan’s sister Aleema Khan got relief from the SC

The court also did not apply Article 62 (1) (f) on Federal Minister Azam Swati in a case in which Swati misused his power to influence the capital police to arrest some people belonging to the working class.

Even the apex court led by former CJP Asif Saeed Khosa did not halt the accountability campaign against opposition parties. Several lawmakers like Zardari, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Talpur, Rafique, Khursheed Shah, Hamza Shehbaz, Rana Sanuallah and other government functionaries were behind bars but the courts did not give them any relief.

Nawaz Sharif is yet to get relief in the Al-Azizia case in which he was convicted as Islamabad’s Accountability Court-II Judge Arshad Malik who sentenced him to seven-year imprisonment on Dec 24, 2018, later confessed in a secretly recorded video that he was blackmailed into giving the verdict.

On the other hand, PTI’s Babar Awan was acquitted in the Nandipur project case.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) also did not arrest Punjab Assembly Speaker Pervaiz Elahi, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak, Special Assistant to PM on Overseas Pakistanis Bukhari, and PM’s Principal Secretary Azam Khan.