Supreme Court to give Panama Leaks verdict tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan will announce the much awaited verdict of Panamagate case against Sharif family on April 20.

According to the apex court's supplementary cause list, the verdict will be announced on April 20 at 2:00 PM.

The apex court is to let out whether Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is eligible to lead the nation or not. The Supreme Court had reserved the verdict on February 23.

Panama Papers had published a leak of documents belonging to Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm in April 2016. The leak named over 400 incumbent as well as former leaders of the world who owned offshore companies which were interpreted by the commentators as means to stash wealth abroad.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's family; two sons and a daughter were named in the documents which were studied by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Opposition parties in Pakistan saw the published documents as evidence of alleged money laundering done by the premier.

Leader of one of the opposition parties, Imran Khan used the leak to accuse the government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz of misleading the nation and looting hard-earned money of the taxpayers'.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, in leadership of Imran Khan managed to draw a consensus of opposition parties to demand the premier to resign and offer himself for accountability.

The Prime Minister, in response to the joint opposition offered to form a parliamentary committee to form joint Terms of References to have the issue probed by the apex court.

On the floor of the House, PM Nawaz categorically denied the allegations and claimed that no money was stashed in foreign bank accounts by his family.

Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly, Khurshid Shah called off the protest against the government and absence of PM Nawaz in the House delaying due explanation and took him up on his offer.

Six representatives of the two sides each convened several meetings, some held at residence of Leader of the Opposition in Senate, Aitzaz Ahsan, but failed to chalk out joint Terms of References to have the premier probed by a bench of the top court.

The representatives of the government and the opposition, referred to by the media and the masses as ToR committee, never agreed on joint Terms of References.

On political front, Imran Khan and other parties were successful by then to develop an agenda for the people through across-the-country rallies and media barrage of statements that drew counter-narrative explanations. - NNI