Summary The ouster that has gone in the books of history
(Web Desk) – Quite an unprecedented development came this week about former premier Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification and Twitter Buffet this week has decided not to digress.
The premier been taken down by the apex court for a technicality. The salary he chose not to withdraw from Capital FZE, some 10,000 Dirhams brought the PM down.
Here at this week’s Twitter Buffet we look at the Panamagate Joint Investigation Team (JIT) timeline at first.
The JIT
A Joint Investigation Team was set by the Supreme Court of Pakistan to investigate into the Panama Papers controversy involving the ruling Sharif family.
On April 20 the Supreme Court constituted a Joint Investigation Team to investigate the Panama Case. The JIT officially started their investigation from May 7 during which different personalities were called in to answer a questionnaire based on 13 points. Following is a timeline of major dates on which focal personalities involving the investigation were called in by the JIT.
May 7 to May 27: Owner of Hudaibiya Paper Mills Tariq Shafi, along with journalist Umar Cheema were called in.
May 19: Qatar’s Prince Hammad bin Jasim al-thani was summoned by the JIT to appear on May 25. Although he did not appear and instead, submitted a response that his letter submitted before the Supreme Court be taken into the consideration
May 22: JIT submitted the first 15 days report before the SC bench in which it also made references to the allegations made by different parties on the JIT.
May 28: Hussain Nawaz appeared for the first time. Overall he appeared six times in front of the investigation team which lasted for 30 hours in total.
June 2: For the first time Hassan Nawaz appeared before the JIT. He appeared again on June 8 and was questioned for 12 hours in total.
June 8 to June 14: JIT requested PM Nawaz Sharif, CM Punjab Shahbaz Sharif and PM’s son-in-law Captain Safdar to appear before them in the week that followed.
June 15: PM Nawaz Sharif appeared before the JIT. He was questioned for 3 hours.
June 17: JIT questioned Chief Minister of Punjab Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif for three and a half hours.
July 5: Maryam Nawaz, daughter of PM Nawaz, was called in by the JIT. The questioning lasted for one hour forty five minutes. She also addressed the critics through media for the first time in front of the Judicial Academy. Chairman NAB also recorded his statement before the JIT the same day.
JIT also questioned Tariq Shafeeq cousin of P.M. Nawaz Sharif twice for 16 hours.
Captain Safdar was questioned for 4 hours, Rehman Malik for 2 hours. Former Chairman NAB Muhammad Amjad was investigated for one hour, current Chairman NAB Qamar Zaman Chaudhry for one and a half hour, and Ishaq Dar for two hours forty five minutes.
.jpg)
Panama timeline
.jpg)
Mossack Fonseca leak
Panama Papers had published a leak of documents belonging to Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm on April 4, 2016. The leak named over 400 incumbent as well as former leaders of the world who owned offshore companies which were interpreted by the commentators as means to stash wealth abroad.
Ex-premier Nawaz Sharif’s family; two sons and a daughter were named in the documents which were studied by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Opposition parties in Pakistan saw the published documents as proof of alleged money laundering done by the premier. Questions over the source of money used to purchase flats in London s posh Mayfair locality by Sharif family were raised by opposition leaders.
Leader of one of the opposition parties, Imran Khan used the leak to accuse the government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz of misleading the nation and looting hard-earned money of the taxpayers.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, in leadership of Imran Khan managed to draw a consensus of opposition parties to demand the premier to resign and offer himself for accountability.
PM Nawaz addressed the nation twice, once on April 5 and April 22 to take the nation in confidence and denied corruption accusations. He offered to form a judicial commission to probe the leaks against his family which was denied by opposition parties.
Later, the former PM offered to establish a parliamentary committee to form joint Terms of References to have the issue probed by the apex court.
On the floor of the House in May, PM Nawaz categorically denied the allegations and claimed that no money was stashed in foreign bank accounts by his family.
Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly, Khurshid Shah called off the protest against the government and absence of PM Nawaz in the House delaying due explanation and took him up on his offer.
Six representatives of the two sides each convened several meetings, some held at residence of Leader of the Opposition in Senate, Aitzaz Ahsan, but failed to chalk out joint Terms of References to have the premier probed by a bench of the top court.
The representatives of the government and the opposition, referred to by the media and the masses as TOR committee, never agreed on joint Terms of References.
On political front, Imran Khan and other parties were successful by then to develop an agenda for the people through across-the-country rallies and media barrage of statements that drew counter-narrative explanations.
Around the time when Imran Khan warned the government of alleged lockdown of the federal capital last year, the apex court took up the case on October 20 and condensed the petitions filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Jamaat-e-Islami and Awami Muslim League against the premier.
On November 7, family of the premier filed replies in the top court and on November 14, PTI submitted evidence against the Sharif family.
Hearing of the case was adjourned on December 9 until first week of January 2017 over retirement of ex-Chief Justice of Pakistan, Anwar Zaheer Jamali. Revised bench comprising of Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Gulzar Ahmed, Justice Sh. Azmat Saeed and Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan resumed the hearing on January 4.
On January 10, in its remarks, the court had branded disqualification of the premier over mere assumptions a dangerous precedent.
Justice Ijaz had stated in another hearing on January 12 that the records which the PM had asserted to produce before the court were not filed and that the bench could not decide what was true and what was false without looking at the documents.
State institutions were remarked against by the top court on February 21 when the judges declared the authorities concerned to have failed in probing lawmakers who owned shell companies.
After a trial that ran for around four months, Supreme Court reserved the verdict on February 23. A supplementary cause list of the top court issued on April 18 reported that the verdict would be let out on April 20, some two months after it was reserved.
The reservations that PML-N had on JIT report
.jpg)
PM ousted, the vlog*
*One frame video, no dedicated mic and poor lights be excused for the time window was tight
