In a move that may mean no relief for Pakistan’s former PM Nawaz Sharif, the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the Practice and Procedure Act 2023, which curtails the power of the chief justice to take suo motu decisions or appoint a roster of judges to the three senior-most judges in the SC, but struck down the section dealing with the right of appeal having retrospective effect, calling it ultra vires of the Constitution.
The denial of the right of retrospective appeal means that a prospective applicant such as Nawaz Sharif cannot appeal against his lifetime disqualification from participating in politics.
Sharif left for Saudi Arabia for Umrah on Wednesday. He will stay there for a week during which he will hold important meetings. He will arrive in Dubai on October 18.
Sharif will reach Pakistan in a chartered plane from Dubai on October 21, ending his four-year-long self-imposed exile in the UK, according to a media report.
The flight carrying Nawaz will have the name “Umeed-e-Pakistan” which can carry approximately 150 passengers, Geo News reported.
“The booking has been made and all arrangements are in place,” the report said.
The 73-year-old three-time prime minister is expected to lead his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party in the general elections likely to be held in January next year.
Sharif will be accompanied to the Saudi visit by his close aides Mian Nasir Janjua, Waqar Ahmed, his friend Karim Yousaf and a few others. Nasir Janjua, the owner of MIDJAC company, spent nearly three years in exile in London with Sharif.
Sharif stepped down as the country’s prime minister in 2017 after he was disqualified for life from holding public office by the Supreme Court for not declaring a receivable salary. He has been living in London since 2019 after the LHC granted him four-week permission allowing him to go abroad for his treatment.
He was serving a seven-year imprisonment at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail in the Al-Azizia Mills case before he was allowed to proceed to London in 2019 on “medical grounds”.
In 2020, an accountability court declared him a proclaimed offender in the Toshakhana vehicles case. He is also accused of obtaining luxury cars from the treasury house by paying just 15 per cent of the price of these vehicles.
He was convicted in the Al-Azizia Mills and Avenfield corruption cases in 2018.
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