SC acts suo motu on Imran sister’s offshore properties
Aleema Khan reportedly paid 50% of total cost of her offshore assets to avoid action
ISLAMABAD: After reports in Pakistani media that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s sister Aleema Khan had paid off half of the total cost of her overseas properties to the country’s tax-collection body Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), national media was rife on Thursday with reports that Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar had taken Suo Motu notice of the deal between Ms Khan and the FBR and has scheduled the matter for hearing.
A number of TV channels flashed ‘breaking’ news about Khan reportedly paying 25 per cent of the total estimated amount of her flat The Loft East-1406 in taxes and 25 per cent as fine.
The said property amount is worth Rs74 million (Dh2.03 million) and it took her legal team four weeks to seal a ‘successful deal’ with officials of the FBR and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), reports claim.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s demand for a probe into Aleema Khan’s offshore assets also added fuel to the fire and social media went into frenzy with posts for and against Ms Khan.
While talking to mediapersons in the Accountability Court earlier in the day where Sharif had come for hearing, the ex-PM said apparently there was no source of Ms Khan’s income.
It must be thoroughly investigated how she accumulated wealth to acquire properties abroad and whether it was her own money or someone had purchased benami properties through her, the former prime minister further asked.
About FBR’s regularising her overseas properties he asked if it was not an NRO.
Later in the day, after reports that Supreme Court Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar had returned from England after attending a number of fund-raising programmes in various UK cities, TV channels broke the news that immediately after his return, the CJ took a suo Motu of Aleema Khan’s revealed properties as earlier she had claimed she had no offshore properties.
The TV channels went to the extent of claiming the CJ had even fixed the case for hearing.
However, Supreme Court sources when contacted said no such notice had been taken and if at all any such notice was taken out, they would have put it on the apex court’s website and shared it with the media.