SHIKARPUR - Former chief justice of Supreme Court Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on Saturday expressed satisfaction with the SC verdict in the Panama leaks case involving Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Justice Chaudhry, who is now head of his own Pakistan Justice Democratic Party, said the judgement was in line with provisions of the law and it was in the larger interest of the country and the nation.

He said that in the light of judgements of two judges of the Supreme Court bench, which heard the Panama leaks case, the prime minister was not “Sadiq and Ameen” therefore he should not be the prime minister of Pakistan anymore. He said that three other judges on the bench had not given the prime minister a clean chit either. After the verdict, he said, it was clear that Sharif had lost the trust of the nation as well as legal and moral ground to continue as the prime minister of Pakistan. He advised Sharif to resign from his office until the JIT constituted by the Supreme Court completes the investigation and the court gives its final verdict in the Panama leaks case on the basis of the JIT’s investigation report.

Replying to a question about Dawn leaks, he said the prime minister did not seem sincere in publishing the report of the JIT on this issue. Expressing his concern about the attitude of Sharif, he said the prime minister perhaps wanted to protect his close aides and some powerful personalities.  Former federal minister Pervaiz Rasheed has already been removed from his office for his alleged involvement in leaking the conversation between civil and military leaders to the media on October 6, 2016.