What is the Fontgate issue?

The joint investigation team (JIT), probing Sharif’s alleged involvement in the Panama Papers graft case, has accused his daughter Maryam Sharif of providing “fake/falsified documents”. The JIT said Maryam, her brothers Hussain and Hassan, and husband Mohammad Safdar signed falsified documents to mislead the country’s apex court.

Pakistan’s Federal Investigations Agency, the country's equivalent of the FBI, discovered that Sharif's daughter Maryam was the sole shareholder of one of two British Virgin Island companies which had invested in high-end London property, described by the agency as “ill-gotten wealth earned through corrupt practices.” 

Calibri is a humanist sans-serif typeface family designed by Lucas de Groot in 2004 and reached the general public on January 30, 2007.”

Calibri replaced Times New Roman as Word’s default typeface in 2007 and replaced Arial in Excel, Outlook, and Powerpoint. Calibri became the default font in Office for Mac 2016. 

A report stated that she had disclosed her ties to the British Virgin Island's firm in 2006 in a statement written in Calibri font. But Microsoft only made the font publically available in 2007, leading to speculation that the documents could have been forged.

According to reports by the BBC and International Business Times, a property deed that recently came to light is dated 2006, but appears to be typed in Microsoft's Calibri font, which wasn't widely released until 2007.

Experts told the BBC that a beta version of Windows 2007 had been available since 2004, but the inventor of the Calibri font, Lucas de Groot, told the BBC, "That beta version were generally only used by 'tech geeks' rather than normal companies or government officials."

However, Microsoft's website states that version 1.0 of the font was available to download separately as far back as 2005. And, according to font consultant Thomas Phinney, Calibri was also available as part of a Windows pre-release in 2004.

Pakistan's leading English newspaper Dawn even reached out to Calibri creator Lucas De Groot, who seemed skeptical of the font's use before its public release. "Why would anyone use a completely unknown font for an official document in 2006?" he questioned.

The JIT's report said: "She had been receiving heavy gifts from Rs 73.5 million to Rs 830.73 million within period of 2009-2016." It said that the "accumulation of Maryam's assets shows a drastic hike in the early 1990s with no declared source of income".

The Supreme Court has sought objections from all parties in the Panama Papers case within a week and the next hearing of the case is scheduled for 17 July. The JIT was formed on 5 May to ascertain the money trail of the Sharif family-owned properties in Park Lane, London.