ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed wonder over non-provision of documents establishing the payment of 117,000 pounds by Kerry Francis Packer, the founder of the World Series Cricket, which helped Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan purchase an apartment in London in 1983.

A three-judge bench invited the attention of senior counsel Naeem Bokhari, representing the PTI chief, to the absence of documents to substantiate that the flat had been purchased using the money provided by the Australian media tycoon who founded the cricket series in which Mr Khan played for some time.

“The link of whatever income has been earned abroad has to be proved,” Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar observed while heading the bench which resumed hearing of Hanif Abbasi’s plea seeking disqualification of Mr Khan and PTI secretary general Jahangir Khan Tareen. The PML-N leader is seeking their disqualification over non-disclosure of their assets, existence of their offshore companies and belonging to a foreign-aided party.

Resumes hearing of Hanif Abbasi’s plea seeking PTI chief’s disqualification

Mr Khan had disclosed the ownership of his London flat and an offshore company, the Niazi Services Limited (NSL), while taking advantage of a tax amnesty scheme announced by the Musharraf government in 2000.

Mr Bokhari told the court that payment from Mr Packer had been mentioned in the documents submitted to it by lawyer Anwar Mansoor. He said the court wanted to know how Mr Khan had generated the money in London when he was not holding any public office in Pakistan and his disclosure had been accepted and no questions had ever been raised by the tax authorities.

Justice Umar Ata Bandial, a member of the bench, asked the counsel to read the 2012 Abdul Aziz Memon case, saying that after this he would stop highlighting again and again that an individual was not the holder of a public office.

In the case, the Supreme Court had held that any person having assets beyond his known sources of income was guilty of corruption.

Senior counsel Muhammad Akram Sheikh, representing the petitioner, requested the court to determine if the scope of the 2000 amnesty only dealt with tax liability and whether the virtues of ‘Sadiq and Ameen’ under Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution only applied to an elected representative or encompassed all citizens.

The court also expressed displeasure over the absence of Mr Mansoor who, though on a general adjournment till Aug 15, had gone abroad without informing it.

The chief justice regretted that the counsel had informed the court that he would return on July 21, but had now sought an adjournment till Aug 15.

The chief justice told Mr Bokhari that the court would have to ask Mr Khan to inform it about who would represent the PTI in place of Mr Mansoor.

Mr Bokhari explained that Mr Mansoor had submitted a rejoinder on the reply of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), but the chief justice observed that he also had to argue in the case.

Justice Faisal Arab deplored that such things did not happen even in trial courts and the counsel should not adopt a casual behaviour.

Justice Arab also asked whether the Pakistan Cricket Board had paid Mr Khan for playing on which tax must have been incurred, but Mr Bokhari explained that in those days cricketers did not play that much as compared to nowadays, adding that his elder brother used to get Rs15 per day for playing for the PCB.

During the proceedings, Justice Bandial also wondered why a taxpayer had to face penalties when a non-filer of returns could get away easily.

“That is why nobody wants to come under the tax net,” the judge said.

The observation came when Asim Zulfikar, a Chartered Accountant who assisted the court since Mr Bokhari had admitted that he was not well conversant with tax laws, said a non-filer could be asked by the tax authorities to submit returns of 10 years, although further proceedings could be initiated at a later stage.

Mr Zulfikar also conceded that an honest taxpayer had to pay 35 per cent but the amnesty scheme cleared off all tax liabilities and waived the wealth tax requirements.

He explained that under the tax laws, a resident Pakistani who stayed in the country for 183 out of 365 days during a year was liable to pay tax on both the income earned here and abroad, whereas a non-resident would pay the tax only on the income earned here.

Referring to Advocate Ibrahim Satti, who appeared on behalf of the ECP, Justice Bandial regretted that when the commission picked up an individual out of 20, it was bound to attract allegations of discrimination and it should have acted across the board by creating a level playing field for every political party.

“The ECP cannot depend on some renegade of a party to come and invite its attention towards the foreign funding or inappropriate donation,” Justice Bandial observed, deploring again that for the past many years the ECP had been in slumber.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2017