ISLAMABAD, Aug 16: The government on Thursday sought time for concluding its discussions with ‘a friendly country’ before submitting to the Supreme Court ‘certain facts and documents’ under which former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif were sent to Saudi Arabia in exile for 10 years.

Attorney-General Malik Mohammad Qayyum told the court, hearing the two brothers’ petitions, that the government had overcome its hesitation but still needed time to consult with the country involved in the so-called deal.

The court adjourned the case until August 23 with a direction that the exchange of documents between the two parties must take place by that date.

A five-member Supreme Court bench, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Faqir Mohammad Khokhar, Justice M. Javed Buttar and Justice Sardar Raza Khan, took up the petitions of Sharif brothers pleading for their right to return the country and participate in the coming elections.

The Supreme Court had in the last hearing served notices on the attorney-general and advocate generals of the four provinces to answer the questions raised in the petitions.

Recalling the 2004 Supreme Court verdict when one of its benches had allowed Shahbaz Sharif to come to Pakistan, the CJ observed that so long the judgment was holding the field no body could stop them from entering the country.

“Paragraphs 15 and 28 clearly indicate that both Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif are citizens of Pakistan and can come back any time. We have failed to understand why are petitioners not availing the benefit out of the judgment when all the executive authorities are bound to obey it,” the CJ asked.

Justice Javed Buttar observed that the 2004 verdict was a declaratory judgment in which it was held that the petitioners enjoyed certain rights.

Malik Qayyum, who had appeared as legal counsel in the Shahbaz Sharif case, reminded that no directive had been issued to the government in that judgment.

Senior advocate Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim, who is representing the Sharif brothers, opposed government’s request to grant it some more time and argued that his clients enjoyed an unequivocal right to enter Pakistan any time.

He conceded that although the Supreme Court had in 2004 ruled that relief was being claimed in a wrong proceeding, it laid down a law that the petitioners were citizens of Pakistan and could come to the country any time.

“What the government did last time was atrocious by forcibly sending Shahbaz Sharif back to Saudi Arabia in a special aircraft on May 11, 2004, when he tried to enter Pakistan,” he said.

Advocate Fakhruddin also referred to a recent statement of President Pervez Musharraf in which he said the government would produce the deal before the court and that the arrival of Nawaz Sharif in the country would create political upheaval.

Nawaz Sharif, who was deposed by Gen Musharraf in a bloodless coup on October 12, 1999, in his petition alleged that the government was preventing him and his brother Shahbaz Sharif from returning to Pakistan.

Talking to journalists after the hearing, the attorney-general said that he had seen the agreement under which the Sharif brothers preferred exile. “The agreement contains signatures of the two brothers and is valid for 10 years. It would be produced before the Supreme Court most probably on the next day of hearing,” he added.

“The government will hopefully submit documents concerning the agreement and the conditions under which the Sharif family went into exile by Aug 22,” the attorney-general told AFP.

Nawaz denies deal with govt