A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Wednesday sent some identical petitions to the chief justice for their disposal by a full bench seeking investigation against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the Panama case.

The petitioners' counsel pleaded that the registrar office fixed the petitions wrongly before the division bench. They submitted that last year the LHC chief justice had constituted a full bench headed by Justice Syed Shehbaz Ali Rizvi. At this, the court asked the counsel about the status of petitions after the Supreme Court's judgment in the Panama case.

The petitioners' counsel, Azhar Siddique, replied that the SC passed the judgment on the petitions of the political parties while their petitions were totally separate. The counsel said they had written an application to the National Accountability Bureau along with the evidences of alleged money laundering and corruption of the Sharif family. He said it was NAB's responsibility to hold investigation on any written application but it did not do so.

The counsel said they had also made the Election Commission of Pakistan a one of the respondents seeking disqualification of the prime minister. On these grounds, these petitions were different from those heard by the Supreme Court, he said. He therefore prayed the court fix the petitions before the full bench headed by Justice Syed Shehbaz Rizvi.-Business Recorder