ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court on Monday served notices on Prime Minister Imran Khan and his close aide Zulfi Bukhari in a petition seeking Bukhari’s disqualification over his dual nationality, ARY News reported.
The petitioner is his plea told the court Mr. Zulfi Bukhari possessed dual nationality hence he couldn’t be appointed as a government functionary.
In his remarks, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar said a person who was expert in a particular domain, but not eligible to be elected, he/she could be appointed advisers.
“Such people’s appointments don’t fall under violations as stated under the Article-62 and Article-63 of the Constitution”, said the chief justice.
He added that the president of the country, under the rules, had the prerogative to appoint such persons as adviser.
Lawyer of the petitioner said if something was prohibited under the law it couldn’t be done in another way.
The apex court, after serving notices to the respondents, adjourned the hearing till Friday.
Zufli Bukhari was appointed the prime minister’s special assistant on overseas Pakistanis and human resource development on September 18.
At the time of his appointment, Bukhari was being investigated by the National Accountability Bureau in connection with establishing offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf supporter, Bukhari, was recently embroiled in a controversy when he was stopped from flying to Saudi Arabia with the PTI chief only to be granted a one-time permission later to perform Umrah and return in six days. Afterwards, Bukhari was placed on the Exit Control List.
The PM’s assistant then approached the Islamabad High Court seeking removal of his name from the ECL.
He said he filed a representation and review petition despite passage of about two months, the review petition of the petitioner has neither been put up for the cabinet, nor decision has been taken thereon by the federal government.
Mr Bukhari requested the court to direct the interior ministry to remove his name from the ECL.
