LAHORE - While the six-member joint investigation team (JIT) on Panama Papers case is due to submit its final report to the Supreme Court on Monday, a federal minister said on Sunday that the PML-N could challenge the same on legal grounds.
Talking to senior journalists and then addressing a responsive gathering of the PML-N workers in his constituency, Railways Minister Khwaja Saad Rafiq said his party had consistently been expressing its reservations about the composition of the JIT and its working and now the matter would be taken up with the court.
He said the ruling party was prepared to deal with all situations that may emerge as a result of the apex court verdict. He made it clear that the assemblies would complete their tenure and elections would be held next year. Also, he said, nobody would be nominated as successor to Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif even if the SC verdict is against him.
Since the minister also ruled out the possibility of agitation a few days ago, it is not clear what the PML-N strategy would be if the country’s top court ruled against the prime minister.
Khwaja Saad said the prime minister was both “Sadiq and Ameen”, and any move to oust him from politics would mean banishing politics from the country.
About lawyers’ argument that it’s the PML-N’s responsibility to bring the Qatari prince to the JIT, the minister said there were many precedents when witnesses’ statement was recorded out of Pakistan.
The Supreme Court had given the JIT 60 days to find answers to 13 questions about the sources of money with which the Sharif family had purchased London flats. The deadline concludes today and with the submission of the JIT report the case would enter a new phase.
The railways minister contradicted media reports and PTI leaders’ claims that a number of PML-N legislators could quit the party and join the PTI after the Supreme Court’s decision in Panama Papers case.
Denying the corruption charges against the prime minister, the minister said the accusers should prove their point.
In an apparent reference to the apex court’s ‘godfather’ and Sicilian Mafia remarks against the ruling party bosses, Khwaja Saad said such characters would never like to appear before the JITs. But since the PML-N leaders had reservations about the JIT, they had the right to express their views.
He made it clear that the court verdict should be and would be accepted.
The government, the minister said, knew who were involved in the ongoing conspiracy.
He alleged that some elements were trying to create a situation before the next year’s Senate election on 50 percent seats to deprive the PML-N of its due share proportionate to its representation in the provincial assemblies.
Saad recounted the services of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after returning to power for a third term, and said the situation had drastically changed over the past four years. In 2013, he said the national kitty was empty and terrorism had become order of the day. But now there was visible improvement in all sectors.
He said it was because of Mr Sharif that China had come up with a huge investment in Pakistan. “Why did China not show interest in Pakistan when Gen Musharraf or Asif Ali Zardari were in power,” he asked.
At the time of the next elections, he said the PML-N would clear its position before the electorate and at the same time take its rivals to task.
The minister strongly criticised Imran Khan for what he called his negative politics. The PTI chairman, he said, was using derogatory language against the Election Commission of Pakistan, but nobody was taking due notice thereof.
