Fawad challenges LHC order in Nawaz case

PTI leader questions if high court was justified in dismissing plea to be made party to case

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Fawad Chaudhry has approached the Supreme Court, challenging the Lahore High Court's (LHC) order disallowing him from becoming a party to a case concerning Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supreme leader Nawaz Sharif's return to Pakistan.

In his petition, Fawad has argued that when Nawaz was being allowed to travel abroad, his younger brother, incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, had guaranteed that he would return to Pakistan.

The PTI government in November 2019 granted Nawaz—then serving a seven-year jail term after his conviction in a corruption case in December 2018—a rare permission to fly to the United Kingdom in view of a debilitating health condition.

The former premier, however, did not return to Pakistan despite several court orders and was later declared a proclaimed offender.   In his plea, the PTI leader maintained that Nawaz Sharif was a “fugitive criminal” and Shehbaz instead of acting as his guarantor “issued him a diplomatic passport”.

He asked the court to order the LHC to allow him to become a party to the case and questioned if the LHC bench was “justified to dismiss the petition of the petitioner without discussing the facts and law point involved in the petition”.

A division bench of the LHC on March 16 dismissed Fawad’s plea to be made a respondent in a case concerning former premier Nawaz Sharif's return to Pakistan, noting that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the federal government were the concerned parties in the case.

The former information minister asked in his petition if the LHC “rightly opined that the petitioner is not a necessary party when he is a citizen of Pakistan and [the] matter pending before [the] LHC involves corruption in [the] public exchequer and public money”.

He also questioned if the bench “rightly dismissed the miscellaneous application of [the] petitioner while not keeping in mind the rights of Pakistani people guaranteed by the chapter of fundamental rights of [the] Constitution”.

According to the petition, the LHC was “not justified” in dismissing Fawad’s petition “which involved the law point of public importance and larger public interest of the country”, and the court was “not justified” in overlooking the settled norms of law regarding affidavits submitted before the court.

It said the LHC wrongly dismissed Fawad’s petition on a technical ground rather than discussing and adjudicating "the disgrace and foul play done by Shehbaz Sharif with the court and law of land”.

The petition requested the SC to set aside the LHC’s order “in the interest of justice” and Fawad be “ordered to be impleaded as party” in the aforementioned case pending before the LHC.