Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and incumbent Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif were Wednesday disqualified by the Supreme Court to be MP or to contest parliamentary elections, which triggered countrywide protest. A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Musa K. Leghari, Justice Sakhi Hussain Bokhari and Justice Sheikh Hakim Ali handed down the short two-line ruling after hearing the disqualification case for over a month. Immediately after the court verdict, the Shahbaz Sharif government in Punjab ceased to exist. Shahbaz Sharif remained no longer chief minister as he was disqualified to be member of the Punjab Assembly. Punjab Governor Salman Taseer took over after the ceasing of the provincial government. Nawaz and Shahbaz were declared ineligible for having been convicted by courts in 2000 before they went into exile. Multitudes of workers of Sharif brothers' Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) resorted to protests in several cities of the country. They tore photographs of President Asif Ali Zardari in Lahore and some other cities. In some towns, shopping centers were shut. The PML-N workers burnt tyres in many cities. The PML-N rejected the decision and said the judges, who delivered it, have no credibility because they were appointed under a law framed by Pervez Musharraf. “We know this decision was written in the presidency,” PML-N spokesman Pervez Rashid told the reporters. “We will not seek its review from the same judges.”
