Islamabad: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea to prohibit video recording of proceedings of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing allegations of money laundering against the Sharif family.
The request was made by Hussain Nawaz, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s elder son, earlier this month after a pictureof his appearance before the JIT, taken from CCTV footage, was leaked and published by the media.
The apex court, setting aside Hussain’s request, said video recordings are only used for preparing the transcript.
Until the law is amended, the video recordings will not be shown in the court room, said Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, head of a special three-judge special bench supervising implementation the April 20 majority 3-2 verdict given by a five-judge bench in the Panama papers case.
“Video recordings cannot be presented as evidence before the court,” the judge assured.
The split verdict had ordered further investigation through the JIT into the allegations against the Sharifs stemming from the leaked documents of a Panama-based law firm related to the family’s properties including four expensive flats in London.
The judge also noted that action had been taken against one suspect identified in connection with the leaking of Hussain’s photo.
The court ordered the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to submit a reply about the allegations that it had hacked a Facebook account in the use of a JIT member and his family in order to retrieve its contents which were apparently attached by Hussain Nawaz to a complaint regarding the JIT’s alleged partiality.
Last week, the director general of the IB conceded that the agency collected ‘details’ of the members of the JIT, but denied hacking any individual’s social media accounts or harassing family.
