The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday concluded the hearings in the Panamagate case and reserved its judgement. The court also opened Volume X of the joint investigation team’s (JIT) report, which was earlier marked “confidential”, providing a copy of the same to Nawaz Sharif’s lawyer Khawaja Harris.
The Panamagate case is being heard by a three-member bench of the SC, headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal and comprising Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed and Justice Ijazul Ahsan.
The JIT, tasked with investigating allegations of money laundering against the Sharif family, submitted its report to the SC on July 10. Volume X of the report, titled “Mutual Legal Assistance Requests ─ Ongoing”, is related to JIT’s international correspondence and the documents obtained from foreign countries during the investigation.
In their objections to the JIT report, filed before the SC earlier this week, the Sharif family and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had described the investigators’ request to withhold Volume X “mala fide”. During Monday’s proceedings, the judges had also expressed their willingness to consider making Volume X public.
“The volume contains details of the JIT’s correspondence and will help clear a number of things,” Justice Azmat Saeed told Harris, adding that the chapter was being opened on the lawyer’s request.
The judges directed that the volume would not be shown to anyone else for now.
