SIALKOT: Federal Minister for Defence, Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif said that Pakistan Muslim League-N government will challenge the joint investigation team (JIT) report in the Supreme Court on Monday.

The PML-N government has decided to defend every clause of the report with complete proof in the Supreme Court, he said on Sunday. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family members would emerge successful from the Supreme Court, he said adding the anti-state elements were busy hatching conspiracies against democracy and the democratic system in the country.

He said that the government was successfully foiling all the conspiracies against the country. The government would not allow anyone to derail democratic system in Pakistan, he added.

Asif made it clear that the prime minister would not step down and he would continue serving the nation. He said Sharif had heavy mandate of masses and, therefore, he would never resign.

He said Sharif was the most popular prime minister of Pakistan, whose government was toppled illegally twice in the past. He said the PML-N government would complete its constitutional term.

“Every time his government was toppled, Nawaz Sharif became much stronger,” he said. The PML-N government was toppled in 1999 as a punishment for making Pakistan an atomic power, he said.

Meanwhile, reports said the joint investigation team which looked into Sharif’s family assets in London following the Panama Papers leak scandal has recommended reopening of 15 cases against the embattled leader.

The high-profile scandal is about alleged money laundering by Sharif in the 1990s, when he twice served as prime minister, to purchase assets in London. The assets surfaced when Panama Papers leak last year revealed that they were managed through offshore companies owned by Sharif’s children.

According to the report in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, the JIT has asked the court to reopen 15 old cases, including five cases decided by the Lahore High Court, eight investigations and two inquiries against the prime minister.

Of these 15 cases, three were filed during the 1994 and 2011 tenures of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and 12 were prepared during the tenure of Pervez Musharraf, who toppled Sharif’s government in October 1999 in a military coup.

The case relating to the Sharif family’s four London apartments was also among the eight investigations started by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in December 1999.

In its April 20 verdict, the Supreme Court asked the JIT to investigate the money trail for the London flats.

The court’s other 12 questions were related to the sale and purchase of the Gulf Steel Mill, the Qatari letter, offshore companies and other matters.

In addition to the 18-year-old investigation into the London properties, the JIT has also recommended reviving cases such as three NAB references and two FIA cases that were quashed by the Lahore High Court.

The JIT even found anomalies in the cases quashed by the high court. The report noted “that these cases have also been quashed without conducting a proper trial and without giving evidence a chance to come on record”.

The JIT also recommended reopening of another case the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) registered the same year of the same nature.