ISLAMABAD - After the Supreme Court announcement the verdict on a petition seeking disqualification of PTI chief Imran Khan and Secretary General Jahangir Tareen, Minister of State for Information, Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said that there could not be two different scales in law and the apex court decision represented a negation of the standard and principle set in the Panama Papers case.
Talking to the media outside the Supreme Court, she said that the verdict was a corroboration of the narrative that Nawaz Sharif explained on GT Road after his disqualification and was not surprising for the PML-N.
She said that a double standard was resorted to because they had to disqualify an elected prime minister who even today was more popular than in 2013, while on the other hand, was a person who had been abusing the ECP, courts and the Constitution and even today was hurling invectives at the NAB. The minister said that it had always been the PML-N’s stance that political leaders should come and go through votes.
She said that on the one hand, an elected prime minister was disqualified on the basis of 'Iqama' for not receiving a salary and on the other hand, a person was told that if he had an offshore company, which was not declared, it did not matter much.
Marriyum said that in this case a thief and dacoit had been sacrificed to save the king. She said, “today it had been established that Jahangir Tareen was a thief and a plunderer and after his disqualification, the ATM that funded the sit-in had been closed”.
The minister said that Imran Khan was running the party with foreign funding which he used for financing the sit-ins and was trying to obstruct development on their dictates. She said that a verdict on that had yet to come and the matter had been referred to the ECP for investigation and giving a verdict on it. She said that the decision by the ECP in that case would disqualify entire the PTI.
Referring to the SC decision in the Hudabiya case, she said that it had a background, it was instituted by NAB and went through different courts but after nine years long scrutiny by the dictator nothing came out of it. She maintained that the SC verdict had to be the one that was given today. It was already an open and shut case, she added. She said that SC had delivered its verdict on Hudabiya and those perched on the container were still busy in politics of abuses adding that their politics of falsehood would soon come to an end.
Marriyum said that the continuation of democracy was imperative for strengthening the system and the state institutions. She said that load shedding and terrorism could only be eliminated through the power of the vote and a vibrant and tensile parliament was indispensable for making the country strong.
Earlier speaking at the concluding ceremony of the National Management Development Course, the minister reiterated that record developments had taken place in the country during the democratic regimes as was amply clear from the progress made during the last four years.
She said that the continuation of the democratic process was imperative for strengthening the system and state institutions. The minister said that it was possible to deal with terrorism and load-shedding with the power of the vote. She said that strong parliament would make the country strong.
Referring to the management course Marriyum said that PIPs had contributed a lot in enhancing contacts between the parliament and the provincial institutions. The minister suggested that PIPs should also organize courses on the supremacy of the parliament and the constitution as such courses and training promoted liaison among the provincial assemblies and the parliament.
The minister said that parliament was an independent entity and a great forum for training and all people must have access to it. The minister also awarded certificates to the participants of the course.