Pakistan`s Supreme Court on Friday disqualified Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is embroiled in a long-running corruption case that has gripped the country.
The court further ordered to register a case against Sharif and directed the National Accountability Board to file its reference against him and his family within six weeks.
The verdict was announced by the five-member bench comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Gulzar Ahmed, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, and Justice Ijazul Ahsan.
Around 3,000 armed police and paramilitary forces were deployed both inside and around the court in Islamabad during the ruling.
The court had in April declared there was “insufficient evidence” to oust Sharif over the graft allegations engulfing his family, and ordered an investigation team to probe the matter.
The team of civilian and military investigators found there was a “significant disparity” between the Sharif family`s income and lifestyle in its report, which was released to the public and submitted to the court earlier this month.
It sparked an uproar with some of its findings, including the claim that documents regarding Sharif`s daughter Maryam and her link to some of the family`s London properties were “falsified” — dated 2006, but typed in Microsoft`s Calibri font, which was not released for commercial use until 2007.
The Sharifs and their allies have consistently and noisily rejected the claims against them, with his ruling PML-N party this month dismissing the investigation team`s report as “trash”.
