ISLAMABAD, September 14: Resuming his arguments before five-member bench of the Supreme Court on Thursday, ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s counsel Khawaja Harris said that Article 62(1)(f) of the constitution could not be applied to anyone merely concealing assets.
The court was hearing a set of review appeals filed by Sharif family
members when Khawaja Haris said that he had been unable to know any precedents in which the court had disqualified a public representative under Article 62 for concealing assets.
Cautioning long-lasting adverse outcomes of life-time disqualification term, the counsel claimed that the constitution does not specify such kind of disqualification under Article 62.
“My client has been disqualified for life-time on not disclosing his work permit and salary from an offshore company, [however] nullifying general elections could only dismiss him for a single election term [five year term],” he further said.
The senior counsel added that although his client was not backtracking from the employment agreement but he did not have a bank account for the purpose.
To which, Justice Ejaz Afzal said that the employment agreement showed that a salary of 10,000 dirhams had been set for Sharif.
Joining in arguments, Justice Ahsan said that the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) documents tell us that Sharif had a bank account to receive the salary. “According to the probing team findings, the first salary was drawn on August 1, 2013.” “The question is, how can the court accept verbally that Nawaz Sharif did not receive the salary?” questioned Justice Afzal, adding that a statement could not be accepted without scrutiny under the law of evidence. The bench ruled that the documents provided by the JIT looking into the Sharif family’s businesses show that Nawaz Sharif did receive salary as the chairman of Capital FZE. To which, Harris argued that not every salary constitutes an asset. “Sharif did not merit disqualification merely on this basis, [although] he had not withdrawn salary [from Capital FZE], it still constituted an asset [due to being a receivable],” Harris said. – DNA
