ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The former Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif on Wednesday filed a plea in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, asking it the term his disqualification declared by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) null and void.
On April 26, a three-member IHC bench disqualified Khawaja Asif for life under article 62 (1)(f) of the Constitution for concealing his assets.
However, Khawaja Asif in his petition filed today in the Supreme Court argued that the IHC didn’t take into account Pakistan and UAE’s laws. He said that IHC declared the non-disclosure of a non-operational bank account malicious.
The former foreign minister further said that his foreign bank account could not be mentioned in the nomination papers unintentionally. He said that he had declared his iqama in 2015 whereas the petition against him was filed in 2017.
Khawaja Asif said that the Islamabad High Court announced the verdict against him based on speculations; therefore, the Supreme Court should declare his disqualification as null and void.
It is worth mentioning here that a petition was filed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) leader Usman Dar in the IHC, saying that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader possessed a UAE Iqama and worked in an Abu Dhabi Company as a legal advisor but he didn’t declare it in Pakistan; therefore, he was no longer eligible to remain a lawmaker. Eventually the IHC while accepting the charges filed against Khawaja Asif declared him ineligible to be a member of the Parliament.
