LAHORE  -An LHC division bench Wednesday directed the registrar office to fix before a full bench the petitions seeking directives for National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to investigate Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Panamagate case and declaring him disqualified.

The bench, headed by Justice Ali Baqar Najfi, passed the order after the counsel of the petitioner pleaded that the registrar office fixed the petitions wrongly before the division bench. He submitted that last year, the LHC chief justice constituted a full bench headed by Justice Syed Shehbaz Ali Rizvi but the registrar office fixed it before the division bench instead of the full bench.

The counsel requested the court to direct the registrar office to fix these petitions before the full bench.

At this, Justice Najfi asked the petitioner’s counsel about the status of petitions after the Supreme Court’s judgment. Azhar Siddique advocate, the counsel of the petitioner, replied that the SC passed the judgment on the petitions of the political parties while their petitions were totally separate.

In one of the petitions, the counsel said, they had written an application to the National Accountability Bureau along with the evidences of alleged money laundering and corruption of Sharif family. He held it was the NAB’s responsibility to hold investigation on any written application but it did not do so.

He prayed that his petitions be fixed before the full bench to be headed by Justice Syed Shehbaz Rizvi. After hearing his arguments, the bench directed the registrar office to fix these petitions before the full bench and sent them to the chief justice.

Meanwhile, the LHC adjourned for indefinite period a petition seeking disqualification of Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif. A local citizen Akhtar Naqvi had moved the petition against him.

PANAMA JIT ‘NOT INDEPENDENT’

PPP leader and senior lawyer Chaudhary Aitzaz Ahsan says the constitution of Joint Investigation Team is not satisfactory and neither it would be independent. Speaking to the reporters outside the premises of the Lahore High Court on Wednesday, he said that the SC observed earlier that NAB had been dead and could not investigate the corruption and now on those institutions, the JIT has been made.

Ahsan said that he was still having the same stance that Prime Minister’s daughter Maryam Nawaz was relative of Director General of Inter Services Intelligence. He stated that criticism of Rana Sanaullah and Kh Saad Rafiq was not a new thing. “PML-N has a ‘Gaalam Galoch Brigade’ (Abusing brigade),” he added.