By India Legal Web Bureau
An audio clip has landed Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in a soup which has a former chief justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court stirring the broth in yet another instance of judicial impropriety to keep the Pakistan Army in good humour.
In the viral audio clip, whose provenance has not been disclosed, the former Pakistan Chief Justice Saqib Nisar can be heard saying Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leaders Mian Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz should be sentenced for corruption in the Avenfield apartments case, revealed in the Panama Paper.
Nisar is said to have instructed Justice Aamir Farooq of Islamabad High Court to convict Sharif and his daughter to pave the way for Imran Khan to come to power. The 2018 elections were won by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf, which got 149 seats. The National Assembly has 342 seats of which 272 are elected and 70 are reserved for minorities and women.
The story was first broken by the Jang Group’s English daily The News relying on an affidavit of former Gilgit Baltistan Supreme Court Chief Justice Rana Mohammad Shamim saying he had heard Nisar instructing Justice Farooq to sentence Sharif and his daughter in 2018.
FactFocus, a Pakistani data-driven investigative website, put out the audio clip afterwards after verifying it by an American company expert in forensics. The clip is from the time when the accountability court in Pakistan was hearing the Avenfield case against Sharif and his daughter.
Both the PML (N) and the Pakistan People’s Party of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari have long alleged, along with many observers of Pakistan politics, that the former Pakistan cricket captain has been the Pakistan Army’s creation and draws his support and strength from Rawalpindi, and not from the mandate of the ballot. The further sullying of the judiciary in the service of the Pakistan Army’s machinations have also left the Pakistan judiciary in an uncomfortable position as another organ of state seems to have collapsed under the generals’ thumb.
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Nisar has dismissed the scandal and claimed it to be fabricated but the political storm is far from dying down. The PML(N), the PPP and other parties have demanded an inquiry by the full Pakistan Supreme Court and the invalidation of Nawaz Sharif’s conviction. Sharif has been in London since November 2019 for medical treatment. His daughter is out on bail.
The former Gilgit Baltistan Chief Justice Rana Mohammad Shamim, the Jang Group and The News have been issued show-cause notices by the Islamabad High Court. The High Court has stressed on the fact that journalists who broke the story did not question Shamim on his silence for all these years, and why he chose to file the affidavit now.