Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf feels the heat: Jahangir Tareen, opposition’s face of corruption?  

The three-member Supreme Court bench hearing the disqualification case against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Jahangir Khan Tareen on July 26th has sought answers to five questions from Tareen’s counsel.

Tareen was elected member of the National Assembly from NA-154, Lodhran in the 2013 General Elections. 

The questions are when was the Jahangir Tareen's trust formed, when was the offshore company formed, who’s the legal and beneficial owner of the company, when and for how much was the offshore company formed, and how many times did he give funds as gifts to his children from 2002-17?

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Hanif Abbasi had petitioned the apex court to disqualify Tareen and PTI Chairman Imran Khan. The petition alleges that Tareen owns offshore companies in the name of his children, shared gifts worth over Rs1.6 billion among family members, and is involved in insider trading in the shares of United Sugar Mills Limited in 2005.

The three-member bench is headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar and comprises Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Faisal Arab. 

Opposition alleged that Mr Tareen had received huge sums of money from his children, which made him the beneficial owner of the businesses and properties in UK – a fact he failed to disclose in his tax returns or in the statement of assets and liabilities submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

This renders him ineligible to contest the election or become a member of parliament under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution, the lawyer had argued.

One of the wealthiest men in politics, owning thousands of acres of farmland, a private plane and running some of the largest sugar mills in the country, Tareen (with assets worth around 1.18 billion rupees) has remained a controversial figure. He inherited his first sugar mill – in Rahim Yar Khan – from his father-in-law Makhdoom Hasan Mehmood, a prominent political figure in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Tareen’s critics allege his sugar business benefitted a lot during the Musharraf era when he remained the federal minister for industries for five years. He joined the PTI in late 2011, after resigning as a member of the National Assembly from a constituency in Rahim Yar Khan, as he felt his vision aligned with Imran Khan’s. He contested the 2013 general elections from a seat in Lodhran district — a place he has heavily invested in, in terms of business, charity and development. But he lost the elections. In the by-polls held for the same seat – after the Supreme Court annulled the results of the earlier election – Tareen defeated his opponent by a margin of over 35,000 votes.

In April 2016, he admitted to having an offshore company registered in the United Kingdom under the names of his children. The revelation comes as a blow to PTI’s most recent rhetoric and spate of protests, with Imran Khan demanding Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to admit to his and his family’s offshore accounts.

His presence in the upper echelons of the party is highlighting the rift between those who want to focus more on mobilising public support for the party’s original agenda of a corruption-free, just and fair Pakistan and those who want the party to focus on winning elections. He represents the latter group.