ISLAMABAD, Aug 23: In a dramatic verdict which may have far-reaching effects on the country’s political future, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the exiled Sharif brothers could come back home and asked the government not to obstruct their return ‘in any manner’.

“It is declared that Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif under Article 15 of the Constitution have an inalienable right to enter and remain in country, as citizens of Pakistan.

“Their return/entry into country shall not be restrained, hampered or obstructed by the Federal or Provincial Government Agencies, in any manner,” a seven-member bench of the court said in a unanimous short order announced after a day-long hearing. Reasons for the ruling will be specified in the detailed judgment to be announced later.

Soon after the verdict, hundreds of PML-N workers waiting in the court building started raising slogans in support of Nawaz Sharif. The celebrations went on for quite some time and later a procession was taken out with Shahbaz Sharif’s son and other party leaders.

Party supporters distributed sweets and sacrificed goats outside the Supreme Court building on the Constitution Avenue. They called upon President Gen Pervez Musharraf to stand down.

Inside the courtroom, PML-N leaders, expecting a favourable outcome, kept on requesting supporters to maintain decorum and refrain from raising slogans or applauding when the judges retire after handing down the verdict.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan, Justice Faqir Mohammad Khokhar, Justice M. Javed Buttar, Justice Nasirul Mulk and Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed ignored a federal government request to adjourn the hearing for three weeks so that it procured the original agreement which the government says the Sharif brothers had signed with a ‘friendly brotherly country’, preferring a 10-year exile to jail term in Pakistan.

“We want to plug all holes to discourage future adventurists to come through the backdoor,” PML-N leader Khawaja Asif said after the judgment, adding that a meeting of senior party leaders would soon be called to decide when the Sharif brothers should return home and organise the party. However, he suggested that the Sharifs should return before the presidential election.

PML-N’s information secretary Ahsan Iqbal said the welcome the people would accord to the Sharif brothers on their return would be unparalleled not only in Asia but in the entire world.

Earlier, Attorney-General Malik Mohammad Qayyum conceded before the bench that the Sharif brothers were citizens of Pakistan and enjoyed all rights under Article 15 of the Constitution. He said there was no law prohibiting a citizen from coming to Pakistan but what prevented their return was the agreement with the ‘brotherly country’ that they would stay abroad for 10 years. The Sharifs had already derived benefit out of the agreement, he said.

(APP quoted Mr Qayyum as saying that the Sharifs had left Pakistan after an undertaking and even got remission of sentence on its basis. Now that the undertaking is no more in the field, hence the benefits that were given under it are liable to be withdrawn.”)

“This is a matter of national interest because this was a tripartite agreement and if they (the Sharifs) return they will breach the commitment made between sovereign countries,” the attorney-general said, adding that the breach would affect Pakistan’s relations with the friendly country he avoided to name.

“How can the court shut its eyes on enforcement of the fundamental rights?” Justice Buttar enquired.

About photocopies of the undertaking signed by the Sharifs with the brotherly country, the attorney-general said the documents had been filed in the court with great reluctance. “Should we go back on the solemn agreement with the friendly country, which intervened on their request? Why the Supreme Court should become a party in the breach of the agreements?” he asked, adding that cases were still pending against the Sharif brothers which they would face if they returned.

Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, representing the petitioners, denied that the Sharif brothers’ return would threaten relationship with a friendly country, saying “our national interest should be decided by us and not be dictated by others”. The government’s apprehensions that its relations with a brotherly country would be strained were mere conjectures, he said. “In fact the Sharifs’ return will be in the national interest.”

The attorney-general told the court that the country was not under any emergency and all citizens had full fundamental rights. The clarification came after advocate Raja Ibrahim Satti, representing the federal government, had said the emergency clamped by the Nawaz Sharif government on May 28, 1998, at the time of nuclear tests had not been lifted and still existed.

“This is a very serious statement and will create further problems for the country,” the chief justice said, adding that the news about emergency had caused stock market crash and a loss of Rs10 billion.

Another government lawyer, Ahmed Raza Qasuri, said that the Sharif brothers’ apprehensions that they would be arrested were political and they had filed the petition prematurely.