Islamabad: Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the nominees forwarded by the central bank and the securities and exchange commission to be part of a joint investigation team that will probe Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his sons’ alleged corruption in the Panama Papers case.
“We want honest and professional officials to be members of the JIT (joint investigation team),” Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, who heads a three-member special bench that held its first hearing on Wednesday to implement the court’s decision to oversee the formation and functioning of the six-member JIT.
Khan said the officials nominated by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Securities and Exchange Commission Pakistan (SECP) did not meet the court’s criteria for a transparent investigation.
The special bench, comprising Justice Khan, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed and Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan, ordered the chiefs of SECP and SBP to appear in person on May 5 with a list of senior officers from which it can pick suitable officers.
Sharif, 67, had got a temporary breather last month from the Supreme Court which said there was “insufficient evidence” to remove him from office but ordered setting up of a JIT to probe the graft allegations against his family.
The high-profile graft case is about alleged money laundering by Sharif in 1990s when he twice served as the Prime Minister to purchase assets in London.
Information about the assets surfaced when Panama Papers last year showed that they were managed through offshore companies owned by Sharif’s children. Prime Minister Sharif has denied any wrongdoing since the scandal first surfaced. (PTI)