Staff Reporter
Justice Qazi Faez Isa on Monday approached the Supreme Court seeking a review of its June 19 majority order requiring the verification of three offshore properties in his wife and children’s name by tax authorities.
Filed through senior counsel Munir A. Malik, the petition argued that the top court’s short order had “material errors of facts and jurisdiction”. It added that many of these were in respect to matters with regard to which neither Justice Isa nor his family were heard.
It also contended that the Federal Board of Revenue had initiated proceedings against Justice Isa and his family members without waiting for the top court’s detailed order.
The majority order by seven judges had quashed the presidential reference against Justice Isa but ordered the FBR chairman to furnish a report under his signatures to the secretary of the Supreme Judicial Council, containing details of the proceedings conducted by the commissioner inland revenue after seeking an explanation from the wife and children of Justice Isa about the nature and source of the funds used to purchase three properties in the United Kingdom.
“After the reference against the petitioner was quashed, there was no justification to direct initiation of FBR proceedings against his wife and children, give guidance and free licence to the acts of an executive which had admittedly acted unlawfully against the petitioner.
“Similarly, there was no justification to direct the FBR chairman to submit the report of such proceedings to the SJC nor for the SJC’s secretary to monitor the delivery of that report, least of all to link the fate of the FBR proceedings against the petitioner’s wife and children […] with proceedings that may be initiated by the SJC against the petitioner.
