ISLAMABAD: Fawad Chaudhry, a leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, approached the Supreme Court on Wednesday challenging the March 16 rejection by the Lahore High Court (LHC) of his plea to become a party in a pending case concerning Mian Nawaz Sharif’s travel abroad.

The LHC was not justified in dismissing the petition as, according to Mr Fawad, it had sought the court’s opinion on a matter of public importance.

Advocate Sikandar Zulqarnain Saleem represented Fawad Chaudhry.

The petitioner argued that the LHC was not justified in overlooking settled norms of law regarding affidavits and undertaking.

PTI leader claims LHC dismissed his petition sans discussing facts

On Nov 16, 2019, a LHC division bench had granted a one-time permission to Nawaz Sharif for travel abroad for four weeks. He was to return if doctors in London certified that he had regained health and was fit to return to Pakistan.

Shehbaz Sharif and his elder brother Nawaz Sharif had given undertakings before the high court ensuring Mr Nawaz’s return within four weeks.

Fawad Chaudhry contended in his petition that the Lahore High Court was not justified to dismiss his petition without discussing facts and the point of law in question.

The petitioner argued that the LHC had wrongly dismissed his miscellaneous application on technical ground rather than “adjudicating upon the disgrace and foul play” allegedly done with the court and the law of the land.

The March 16 court order was not justified and based on surmises and conjunctures, Fawad Chaudhry argued.

According to him, the LHC “overlooked the fact” that after the undertaking of Nov 16, 2019, it was Shehbaz Sharif’s responsibility to produce the “fugitive (Nawaz) before the court”.

Instead, Shehbaz Sharif “facilitated Nawaz Sharif” and issued him a diplomatic passport (after coming to power), the PTI leader observed.

“This amounts to defying the court and the act is punishable under the law.”

Moreover, Fawad went on, the high court had “wrongly given an opinion” that the petitioner was not a party even though he was a citizen of Pakistan and that matters pending before it (LHC) involved alleged plunder of the exchequer.

The LHC was also not justified in ignoring the legal intensity of questions involved in the matter since its order of March 16 would give a licence to the public to cheat the court, Mr Fawad said.

It seems the Lahore High Court was oblivious to section 195 and 476 CrPC, the petitioner contended, since it dismissed the case without realising the fundamental rights guaranteed to Pakistanis in the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2023