The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the two petitions of PML-N leader Shahbaz Sharif, seeking permission to return home, with the observation that he "may come back from abroad, subject to the law of the country".
In a short order of two small paragraphs, the First Bench, presided over by Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, based its decision on the statement of Shahbaz Sharif's counsel that his client would not mind even if he is arrested and tried in the cases against him.
The other two Judges on the Bench were Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar.
The decision was unanimous and came at the tail-end of nearly two-and-a-half hours' arguments from the lawyers representing the petitioner and Federal Government.
The courtroom was jam-packed not only with the workers of Pakistan Muslim League (N) but also politicians belonging to PPP. A former LHC Judge, Muhammad Qayyum Malik, assisted by Abdul Sattar Chughtai, Nazeer Ahmed Bhutta, Shaukat Ali Mehr and Manzoor Ahmed Malik represented Shahbaz Sharif while Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan, assisted by Khurram Hashemi, appeared for the Federation.
The Advocate General of Punjab, Shabbar Raza Rizvi, also addressed the Bench briefly against the petitions.
The short order, dictated by the Chief Justice, said: "During the course of arguments, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner is ready to face the cases registered against him.
He also stated that the petitioner will not mind even if he is arrested at the airport.
"For reasons to be recorded later, both the petitions are dismissed with an observation that the petitioner may come back from abroad subject to the law of the country".
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat has said that Shahbaz Sharif will be arrested if he returned home, violating the 10-year deal with the government.
"Shahbaz will not only face cases, but also be violating the deal under which the Sharif family left Pakistan," he said this while talking to a group of newsmen at the Parliament House.
"There is nothing new in what the court has said, we have been saying for more than a year that the politicians abroad could come back but would have to face cases, pending in the courts," the minister said.
He made it clear that the Sharif family went abroad under a deal not to return for a decade.
Faisal said that the government had considered Shahbaz case sympathetically. He was provided with a passport to leave Saudi Arabia for treatment in London.
AFP ADDS: The Supreme Court allowed exiled politician Shahbaz Sharif, brother of exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, to return home, officials said.
The Sharif brothers, their father, wives and children were banished to Saudi Arabia in December 2000, 14 months after President Pervez Musharraf toppled Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless army coup.
Musharraf claims Sharif had agreed not to return to Pakistan until 2010, under a deal brokered by the Saudi royal family that got him out of jail on charges of treason and tax evasion.
The decision effectively annuls Musharraf's stand that none of the Sharifs could return to Pakistan until 2010 in accordance with the agreement.
Shahbaz, a former chief minister of Punjab province, was a prime ministerial candidate in absentia in October 2002 general elections for the PML-N.
A murder case is pending against him in Lahore over extra-judicial killings by police during his two-year rule of Punjab.
Police say the court has issued a warrant of arrest against Shahbaz in the case.
The PML-N hailed the court's decision.
"We have received justice and the first good news since the October 1999 coup by General Musharraf," spokesman Siddiqul Farooq told AFP.
"This judgement will serve the cause of restoring democracy in the country."
Farooq said Shahbaz would "surely" return to Pakistan and face whatever charges were against him, but no date had yet been set.
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