ISLAMABAD: Over a month after the conclusion of marathon hearings held by the Supreme Court bench in the Panamagate case, a verdict is eagerly and anxiously awaited — the suspense merely heightened by the fact that nobody knows exactly when it will be handed down.

“This is a question I am not able to answer,” senior counsel Shahid Hamid said point-blank when asked to comment.

He had represented the prime minister’s daughter Maryam Safdar, her husband retired Capt Muhammad Safdar and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar before the five-judge bench that heard the case.

He said it would be better if the judgement came sooner rather than later, hastening to add there was no stipulated time frame for the court within which to come out with a verdict.

The bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa closed the marathon hearings about the Panama Papers scandal on Feb 23 with an observation that the judgement that would follow would be such that it would remain relevant and valid for at least 20 years.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan, Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq and Awami Muslim League’s Sheikh Rashid Ahmed had petitioned the Supreme Court to disqualify Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for making misstatements in his speech in the National Assembly on May 16 and address to the nation on April 5 last year about investments made by his children in offshore companies that led to acquiring four upscale flats in London.

Mr Khan told reporters recently that he expected the much-awaited judgement to come next week. But his spokesman Fawad Chaudhry expressed his disappointment, saying he had noticed that the cause list issued by the court for the week had no indication that might lead to the conclusion that the judgement would be announced during the period.

When the Supreme Court had opted for day-to-day hearings, it was a kind of an affirmation of the PTI’s stand that its petition was of great significance, he said.

This decision was even hailed by the nation, he said, but regretted that a month had passed since the completion of the hearing but the judgement was not in sight.

Such a situation had created confusion in the country, necessitating early announcement of the verdict so that a direction could be set for the nation, Mr Chaudhry said.

On the other hand, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said: “One should not speculate about when the judgement is coming since the Supreme Court is independent in operating strictly in accordance with the law and the Constitution.”

But he was bitter that the PTI was allegedly politicising the issue, according to him, only to gain what it had failed to do on the political front by using the shoulders of the apex court.

“Only democracy and the people of Pakistan have the right to determine which party has the right to rule the country,” he said.

Full-court reference

However, legal experts are of the view that the next two weeks may be crucial, especially when the judges who were members of the five-judge bench of the Supreme Court will be available at the principal seat in Islamabad to attend a full-court reference being hosted to bid farewell to Justice Amir Hani Muslim who is reaching superannuation on March 31.

Earlier, some of the members of the bench were either in Lahore or in Karachi, but now all of them will be together in Islamabad and the experts believe that this will give them an opportunity to sit and brainstorm any aspect of the case that they may think needs further deliberation.

Since the conclusion of the Panama Papers case is being billed as one of the most important, rather landmark, judgements in the country’s history, the legal experts are of the view that every member of the bench must be busy writing his own opinion or additional note, although they believe the main verdict will be written by Justice Khosa.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2017