#top law firms in lahore

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To proceed with any of the lawsuits in Lahore, you need to get the service of a law firm in Lahore. Law firms in Lahore Pakistan are available for the service of lawsuit restitution. You need to get hire one of the top law firms in Lahore. Law firms in Lahore provide the services with the best lawyers in Lahore. Aazad Law Associates is the best law firm in Lahore. Advocate Muhammad Ali Naeem Azad is the best lawyer for lawsuit proceeding legally. Aazad Law Associates providing the best service for family cases, criminal cases, property cases, business cases, corporate cases, and others like nadra birth, divorce, and other certificates services. To get service by the best law firm in Lahore Pakistan, feel free to contact Advocate Azad. To get more information regarding our services, visit our website.

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For the legal law service in Lahore, you need to search out the top law firms in Lahore then you choose the best law firm in Lahore for your legal suit. For the law firm in Lahore, Aazad Law Associates is the best law firm in Lahore Pakistan. For all services of the law of family-cases, criminal cases, property cases, business cases, and others the service of a law firm in Lahore is required to complete the formalities and paper-work for your cases. You can consult us for all those legal services to get justice about your case. Advocate Muhammad Ali Naeem Azad is the best lawyer in Lahore Pakistan and CEO of Aazad Law Associates. Contact Advocate Azad to get the legal services through the best law firm in Lahore. You can visit our website for more information.

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Step by Step Process of Registration of gift and Divorce Certificate in Pakistan

Registration of gift and Divorce Certificate in Pakistan:

Nazia Advocate is a top lawyer in Pakistan for the registration of gift and issuance of divorce certificate in Pakistan and single status certificate in Pakistan. The provisions contained in chapter V of the Transfer of Property Act which inter alia require making of a gift of immovable property only by a registered instrument, do not apply to the present case which is of Hiba-bil-iwaz by Muslim such gifts are excluded by Section 129 which provides that nothing in Chapter VII shall be deemed to affect the rule of the Muslim Law even after issuance of divorce certificate in Pakistan and single status certificate in Pakistan.

Formalities Prescribed by the Muslim Law:

The mere fact that the gift deed was not registered would not affect the gift in favor of the donee. A valid gift can be affected orally if the formalities prescribed by the Muslim Law are complied with even if the instrument of the gift is not registered. Letter purporting to be a gift was not valid for the value of registration.

Gift deed is not compulsorily registered; it could be affected orally or by un-registered instrument. Tenant is debarred to challenge the title of the owner on the ground that transfer in his favor has not been affected through a registered deed.

Gift Deed Instead of Dower:

Gift deed instead of dower did not offend against the provision of Section 17 since it never created nor extinguished any tight in immovable property. The deed is an acknowledgment of right in immovable property whereby the executants simply admitted existing ownership through a valid transfer has been completed earlier even after issuance of divorce certificate in Pakistan and single status certificate in Pakistan. The dower deed is both unstamped and unregistered.

Divorce Certificate in Pakistan by Islamic Point of you:

A deed of this kind whereby the interest of Rs. 100 or more is sought to be created compulsorily registerable under Section 17 Of the Registration Act and has to be ignored straight away even after issuance of divorce certificate in Pakistan and single status certificate in Pakistan. Order of member Federal Land Commission declaring the oral transfer of land by a gift on the sole ground of violating Section 123 of T. P. Act, order illegal, passed without lawful authority. Non-registration of gift deed does not make gift void. Unregistered deed in favor of Muslim donee is admissible in evidence. Possession delivered, gift oral or by the unregistered instrument is valid.

Management of gifted property by the donor subsequently effect:

The donees are females and the management and looking after the property by the donor which has been gifted by him shall be deemed to be on behalf of the donees who are wife and daughter of the donor. Misconstruing of evidence: Transfer under registered deed, nothing was on record to doubt its genuineness. The lower Courts for unwarranted reasons declared gift deed to be void and ineffective in toto. High Court on revision reversing the concurrent finding of lower Court and holding that donor has rightly transferred her entire share to the donee.

When there is no misreading of the evidence, the finding cannot be set aside even after issuance of divorce certificate in Pakistan and single status certificate in Pakistan. In Pakistan, there are many Law firms in Lahore Pakistan but our Law Firm in Lahore is Best among of them and we have expert Lawyers who handle the Nadra Divorce Certificate Procedure.

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Law firms in Lahore are available to provide you the consultancy and legal service for your cases. Aazad Law Associates is the best law firm in Lahore out of top law firms in Lahore. For the legal lawsuit services in Lahore, you always need to contact a law firm in Lahore. For your legal case proceeding, you always need to concern by en expert lawyer of the best law firm in Lahore Pakistan. There are many of the best law firms in Lahore Pakistan but Aazad Law Associates is the best law firm. To get service you need to get consulted by a professional lawyer of Aazad Law Associates. To get service by best law firm in Lahore, Call Advocate Azad at +923464465967 Or visit our website to get info about different services.

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Top & Best Contracts through Law Firms in Lahore Pakistan in 2021

Contracts through Law Firms in Lahore Pakistan:

Nazia Law Associates among the best law firms in Lahore Pakistan providing lawyers in Lahore Pakistan for services of contracts. Agreement between parties, encashment of Bank guarantee. Employer restrained to encash Bank guarantee. Suit for injunction through lawyers in Lahore Pakistan of law firms of Lahore Pakistan against Bank restraining to pay guarantee person entitled, is not maintainable.

Encroachment on Municipal Land:

Encroachment ma de by defendant on the Municipal land is a nuisance and trespass. Permanent injunction granted. Grant of injunction in case of encroachment on the Municipal Land will tantamount to giving right of present and future guarantee to trespasser. Injunction refused. Construction on the Municipal land detriment to plaintiff shop in front, permanent injunction granted. Person badly affected by construction on lane closing his sewerage system and existing doors and then by depriving him of existing amenities can maintain suit without joining others.

Electricity bills:

Effect of payment of consumer during pendency of suit making interim payment of bills, amount could be adjusted towards future bitts. Suit is maintainable.

Enforcement of contract:

Section 56 (f) contract not specifically enforceable, no injunction for dispossessing petitioner from plot can be claimed. Railway contract through lawyers in Lahore Pakistan of law firms of Lahore Pakistan is revocable at granter's will, and agreement barred under Section 56 (f) is not enforceable. Breach of contract, Court would not grant injunction to one party when it cannot grant to the other if he want to have the contract performed.

Cancellation of contract through lawyers in Lahore Pakistan of law firms of Lahore Pakistan by the Railway, injunction cannot be granted to contractor.

Construction of mosque:

Defendant in possession of plaintiff's land intending to build mosque and dedicate the same to public. Injunction restraining construction of building can be granted. Construction of place of worship by non-Muslim for themselves cannot by itself cause injury or loss to the Muslim, Islam a religion of tolerance leave non-Muslim free to profess and practice their religion. Execution of scheme: Suit through lawyers in Lahore Pakistan of law firms of Lahore Pakistan against L. D. A. for using public street as building, suit not maintainable. Modification of scheme can be made by authority. Mandatory injunction to Municipal Committee for execution of drainage scheme is not possible.

Execution proceedings:

Execution proceedings are judicial proceedings. Proceedings in execution may be stayed. When a prohibitory injunction is violated, the remedy is not by putting the decree into execution but by adopting other measures as provided by law. As in the present case, the prohibitory injunction is violated the decree is not executable and the execution case is not maintainable for the remedies under Order 21, rule 32, C. P. C. to  (3) Decree can be enforced against legal representatives of judgment-debtor under Section 50, C. P. C. and against purchaser pendente lite under Section 52. T. P. Act.

Execution taken out on a decree granting an injunction on the ground that the terms of it had been infringed. The person who is charged may plead impossibility of infringement because of the disappearance of the subject-matter. The disobedience of injunction may be punished for contempt. The application through lawyers in Lahore Pakistan of law firms of Lahore Pakistan for execution of decree for injunction is governed by Article 182 of the Limitation Act. In Pakistan, there are many Law Firms in Lahore Pakistan but In Nazia Law Associate is one of them Best and we have Expert Lawyers in Lahore who work on Legal cases in Pakistan.

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Court Marriage in world And Family Lawyer.

Family Lawyer :  We are the best family law firm of Lahore Pakistan with best family lawyers in Lahore Pakistan. Law Society Pakistan the Law Firm is well reputed and one of top law firm of Pakistan. We provide services for foreigner Marriage with Pakistan citizen in Pakistan, Court marriage, and divorce for overseas, Khula, online marriage in Pakistan, International Divorce, our Firm is specialized and reliable Law Firm in Lahore Pakistan for All Kind of Family cases in Pakistan.   court  Marriage in whole world:  We are the best family law firm of Lahore Pakistan with best family lawyers in Lahore Pakistan. Law Society Pakistan “The Law Firm” is well reputed and one of top law firm of Pakistan. We provide services for foreigner Marriage with Pakistan citizen in Pakistan, Court marriage, divorce for overseas, Khula, online marriage in Pakistan, International Divorce.

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Looking for professional lawyer in Lahore? Advocate Nazia is a professional and  legal lawyer in Lahore Pakistan. You can visit website of familycaselawyer.com to get help for your cases and contact us to solve your case with legal way of latest laws. Nazia Law Associate provide best service for law firm in Lahore Pakistan, Advocate Nazia is one of the professional lawyer from top lawyers in Lahore Pakistan who knows the latest procedures of solving different cases with best law firm in Lahore.

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Expensive Law Firms In Lahore

If you are wondering that why the law firms in Lahore Pakistan are expensive then the answer to this question is that the law firms in Lahore Pakistan are expensive as when you get your services through a law firm in Lahore Pakistan then you are not hiring a single lawyer for your case. Normally people hire a single lawyer for their issues which is not bad in fact but for extremely complex issues you can hire a law firm in Lahore Pakistan. In each law firms in Lahore Pakistan there are many lawyers each of them is an expert of his field. For example you get an expert lawyer of civil, criminal, corporate and family cases all at one place. For example if you have a medical issue and you visit a doctor he will guide you as per his expertise but for medical issue when you go to a hospital you find expert doctor of all subjects. Same is the case with the law firms in Lahore Pakistan where you get variety of lawyers of all subjects each of them will have expertise in his own domain.

Law firms in Lahore Pakistan are normally hired for high profile cases but if you can bear the expenses of law firms in Lahore you can hire the services of these law firms in Lahore Pakistan. It’s not all the law firms in Lahore Pakistan which are expensive but there are some law firms in Lahore Pakistan which are very famous for their work and are not very expensive. Some of the inexpensive but notable law firms in Lahore Pakistan are Nazia Law Associates and Aazad Law Associates. These law firms in Lahore Pakistan are the best and have all the expertise required in all fields of law. Nazia Law Associates is the best law firm in Lahore mostly dealing in civil, property and family cases. This law firm is very famous for family cases. Aazad Law Associates is among the top law firms in Lahore Pakistan and is very famous for civil, criminal, corporate, property and family cases. A law firm in Lahore Pakistan has to maintain its lawyers working in law firm so have to bear all the costs of their panel of lawyers.

Most of the investigative work is done by these lawyers working in this law firms of Lahore Pakistan so it can be a bit expensive. Sometimes a set of lawyers and friends get a single office which they name as a law firm in Lahore which is fact is not a law firm and just a office of shared bases however when you are working all together to get a legal issue resolved it is said that you are running a law firm. In a law firm a set of lawyers can also work individually or can also work on pay roll of the owner of such law firm. As per my research Nazia Law Associates is the best law firm in Lahore Pakistan and Aazad Law Associates is among the top law firms in Lahore Pakistan and both are not expensive at all.

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If you face any legal problem and finding advocate in lahore pakistan then Lawyerinlahore is the best law firm in lahore which is providing top lawyer in  lahore to provide solution of your all legal problems. To get consultation from best law firm in lahore visit http://www.lawyerinlahore.com/ .Our best advocate in lahore deal following legal matters. Family Cases. Court marriage. Property cases. Business cases. Criminal cases.

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Best Lawyer in Lahore Pakistan

The team of lawyerinlahore consist on best advocate in lahore and the team leader name is Advocate Muhammad Ali Naeem Azad. Lawyerinlahore is an exemplary expertise in all of legal cases like Civil, Criminal, Corporate and Family cases. Get consultation from best lawyer in lahore in any legal problem like, family cases, court marriage, property cases, business cases criminal cases etc.

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In the list of top law firms in lahore one name is lawyerinlahore. Which is the one of the leading law firm not only in Lahore as well as all across the Pakistan. The team of lawyerinlahore consist on best advocate in lahore and the team leader name is Advocate Muhammad Ali Naeem Azad. Which are providing their professional services in the following fields. Family Cases. Court marriage. Property cases. Business cases. Criminal cases.

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Tax lawyer In Lahore

Are you worried about your Tax affairs? Over the years Federal Board of Revenue ‘FBR’ has continuously broadened the tax net to increase tax revenue. Consequent to stringent policy more and more people are being called up for audits and assessments.  Have your received a Notice for Audit, filing of your Tax Return or already been issued an assessment order or have any queries about how to address issues with existing tax policy? In any of these or related issues, team at Hamza and Hamza Law Associates being one of the top law firms in Lahore can provide you with valued guidance and representation to ease you of your tax affairs. We realize your concerns and understand your stress and anxiety that may be associated with tax issues. Our goal is to provide workable solutions that address your particular problems speedily and effectively. Being the best tax lawyer in Lahore at Hamza and Hamza Law Associates, you get more than just attorney representation. You have the entire force of the firm behind you, including attorneys with experience in Income Tax, Sales Tax, Custom Laws, Sales Tax on Services, filing of Tax Returns, Audit proceedings and auxiliary matters. Team at Hamza and Hamza Law Associates being top tax lawyers in Lahore specialize in all the above related issues and have successfully represented clients at different forums.And our customers know we are the best Tax lawyer In Lahore.

It is important to keep in mind the benefits that a hiring our legal team comprising of best tax lawyers in Lahore can yield for you. We at Hamza and Hamza Law associates are equipped with latest reforms and authorities and provide best solution to ensure Tax benefits while saving your hard-earned money. Worthy mentioning that Tax affairs if properly regulated could save a lot of money. We at Hamza and Hamza Law Associates understand your business and expertise in tax management. When it comes to taxes and the laws that govern them, there is a lot to be taken into consideration. You do not want to incorrectly file or accidentally engage in fraudulent behaviors. Failing to adhere to laws and stipulation governing the subject, result in burdensome taxes which are difficult to bear. Expert Tax lawyers in Lahore at Hamza and Hamza Law Associates take care of all your worries and stresses. We have an abundant amount of experience in tax law dealings, from tax management to filing your tax returns and preparing and maintaining your tax record, pursuing and defending audit and assessment proceeding before relevant authorities. Hiring us keeps you happy, confident, and secure in your tax matters

Hamza And Hamza Law Associates, the best tax lawyers in Lahore have been successfully representing clients in Custom, FBR, and PRA tax audits, tax collection cases, penalty waivers, as well as tax appeals for more than 10 years. In difficult tax cases, Hamza And Hamza Law Associates, experienced attorneys will represent you and defend your interests with Custom, FBR and PRA audit departments, in legal as well as department proceedings pending at Lahore. We have a deep understanding of the legal and procedural issues in Tax cases while also recognizing the uniqueness of each case. Consequently, we seek out solutions that put our clients in the best position to achieve their goals.

Our services include:

FBR audits: We guide businesses, individuals and nonprofit organizations through the audit process. International tax law concerns: Our lawyers address all matters involving Remittances, Non-residential status, foreign income and investments as well as repartition. Tax Assessment: When the FBR has erroneously assessed illegal tax, we assail and protest the assessment before the competent authority and mend or nullify the assessment. Income Tax Return: Since 2013 each and every citizen of Pakistan through different activities are paying advance taxes. However, still they do not receive any benefits for paying hefty taxes. We at Hamza and Hamza Law Associates being expert tax lawyers in Lahore help you in becoming tax filers by filing your income Tax returns.

Sales Tax Return: We at Hamza and Hamza Law Associates being the best tax lawyers in Lahore file your sales tax return, prepare and maintain your record for future references. Sales Tax on Services: Team at Hamza And Hamza Law Associates also expertise in filing tax returns and Pursing audit cases and assessment with Punjab Revenue Authority ‘PRA’. Not For Profit & Tax-Exempt Organizations: Our attorneys have a full command of the tax concerns faced by nonprofit agencies. Our first objective is to help our clients resolve their underlying dispute with a tax authority on the best possible terms. Beyond that, we strive to help our clients make informed, educated decisions about taxes now and in the future. In short, we want to solve our clients’ current tax problems while helping them avoid new problems. We at Hamza and Hamza Law Associates being the best and top tax lawyers in Lahore, in the only law firm to be trusted when it comes to matter relating to tax affairs. We are reliable, efficient and effective and get the matter resolved in speedy manner.

Contact us Today : +92-300-8447469/+92-321-4554554

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Nazia Law Associate - Procedure Of Court Marriage In Pakistan

Court Marriage In Pakistan :

                                                    Court marriage in Pakistan  brings a lot of relief not only to the lovers but also for those who want to have arranged marriage in Pakistan. Not only the lovers but decent families have now started to go for Court marriage services in Pakistan and at the top of all is the city of Lahore. Highest numbers of Court marriage in Lahore  Pakistan have been recorded in the year of 2018. There are many reasons why people now prefer to adopt Court marriage procedure in Pakistan.

Famous Law Firm And Expert Female Lawyer :  

                                                                                     One of the famous law firm in Lahore Pakistan Nazia Law Associates  headed by the best female lawyer in Lahore Pakistan Advocate Nazia says that when a lawyer knows that he can easily skip away with the money of client then there is most probability of a mishap. Nazia Law Associates owns their own personal office in siddique trade center , Gulberg, Lahore and are very famous in their honesty with the clients. Advocate Nazia says that the own personal office of a lawyer adds a plus in the level of trust with the clients and also suggests that it is better you deals with someone who owns his own office specially when a handsome fee from the client is involved.

Some of the benefits of Court marriage in Pakistan are given below.

1-      Court marriage in Pakistan can be done maximum in just two hours so you don’t need to go for a whole day function. Normally arrange marriage takes a lot of time while the Court marriage in Pakistan takes just two hours.

2-      One of the other benefits of Court marriage in Pakistan is that it is cheap. Normal fee of Court marriage in Pakistan is about Rs25000 to Rs50000 depending on the skills of a Court marriage lawyer in Pakistan where as on the other hand people spend millions on just a wedding function.

https://www.familycaselawyer.com/court-marriage.php

3-      No special arrangements are required to be organized by the spouse all you need to do is to find a competent Court marriage lawyer in Pakistan and he will do all the necessary arrangements whatever is required. All Court marriage procedure in Pakistan  will be conducted by the lawyer.

4-      Services of nikah khawan are also available in Court marriage services. Most of the people do not now that in Court marriage in Pakistan you also get licensed nikah khawan provided by the lawyer.

5-      You also get legal protection in Court marriage services where as you do not get any legal protection in arrange marriages in Pakistan

6-      No transport services are required to accommodate your relatives all you need to do is to walk in to the lawyer’s office and have your Court marriage done.

7-      No extra people are required for the services of Court marriage in Pakistan where as in arrange marriage you have to call all your relatives, friends and others to accompany you in the marriage ceremony.

8-      In Court marriage even you don’t have witnesses your Court marriage lawyer arranges witnesses for you. Normally lawyers charge extra for witnesses also.

9-      Privacy of spouse is guaranteed in Court marriage services in Pakistan for example if you do not want to disclose your marriage then all you need  to do is to find a family lawyer and he will make sure your privacy is maintained whereas you don’t get this facility in arrange marriage

10-   No extra documentation is required for availing the services of Court marriage in Pakistan all you need to do is to pick up your cnic or id card and visit the lawyers office who will conduct your Court marriage. If something is not necessary the lawyer will not ask you to produce.

11-   In Court marriage services your all marriage certificates are registered in two hours whereas it takes weeks to get marriage certificate registered in arrange marriages.

https://www.familycaselawyer.com/court-marriage.php

12-   Procedure of Court marriage in Pakistan is very easy all you need to do is to follow the instruction of your lawyer.

13-   Court marriage In Pakistan is also possible through a family lawyer whereas it is not possible in arrange marriages

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Top Law Firms in Lahore

To discover your family lawyer that is better in Lahore can be done. Top Law Firms in Lahore However, for that, firstly, we have to see which lawyer is frequently practicing in the industry that is relevant. Secondly, to see for the length of time he/she has practiced the industry that is pertinent. The overall image associated with the attorney on the list of fraternities that is legal has to be considered. If the attorney is hardworking and takes the working task really or not? Consistency of a lawyer working in the domain that is exactly the same counts. In short, you will find many aspects that have to be looked at before selecting and choosing the lawyer that is most beneficial in Lahore.

S & S, a vibrant and modern professional associate establish in 2011, is a full-service law firm based in Lahore, Pakistan. We understand what our clients may need today and continuously acclimatize to new demands and business pressures to deliver what they might need tomorrow. 

S&S has been providing legal representation, documentation, and a wide range of solution-oriented legal services like litigation, consultancy, advisory, case research, and expert opinion service to local and multi-national companies industry associations, to the government, statutory bodies regulatory bodies financial and health institutions tech startups sports and political personalities other entities and to individuals.

We are guided by the belief that a law firm’s stock in trade is clients services and what made S&S such a valued and trusted advocate is how fully we committed our personal energies, expertise, and experience to produce the very best legal outcome for you because at the end of the day your success is the only meaningful measure of our own. 

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Top corporate law firm and Best Lawyer in Pakistan

SNS Law Firm is one of Top corporate law firm in Lahore. We have more than twenty Associates with our base camp situated in Lahore. We represent considerable authority in organizing and archiving complex business exchanges including both homegrown and cross-outskirt exchanges. Simultaneously our suit specialists bring to our training a considerable encounter of business, corporate, ADR and joint ventures case. We cling to a business strategy that denies prejudicial practices or badgering against candidates or workers of any kind dependent on religion, nationality, race, shading, class, ideology, sex, sexual direction, public root, age, citizenship, conjugal status, sex personality or articulation or inability. We are focused on offering legitimate types of assistance of the most elevated worldwide principles. We will likely be the firm of decision for clients who esteem demonstrable skill and duty in tending to significant legitimate difficulties, questions and business exchanges. Our legal advisors put stock in supreme promise to the portrayal of our clients advantages and invest heavily in their capacity to viably assess issues facing our clients, and to convey absolutely for their sake in any setting. Careful exploration and arrangement, genuine, down to business guidance and familiar support dependent on a top to bottom information on the law are the signs of SNS legitimate work.

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PAKISTAN

Prime Minister Imran Khan Promised ‘New Pakistan’ But Members of His Inner Circle Secretly Moved Millions Offshore

Leak shows a key ally tried to bypass tax authorities and political and military elites bought luxury apartments and set up shell companies.

— By Margot Gibbs and Malia Politzer

— Image: Arif Ali/AFP via Getty Images

— October 3, 2021

Imran Khan at an anti-government rally in Lahore in 2016, shortly after the Panama Papers caused uproar in Pakistan.

In 2018, Imran Khan, the Pakistani cricketing legend turned anti-corruption campaigner finally broke through.

After more than two decades in the political wilderness, the charismatic Oxford-educated media star seized on the publication of the Panama Papers, the 2016 journalistic exposé that revealed the offshore secrets of the global elite. Among the findings: The children of Pakistan’s sitting prime minister secretly owned a string of luxury London apartments.

Riding a wave of public outrage, Khan led protests around the country and a sit-in at the residence of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, demanding that he step down. With the support of the military establishment, Khan propelled his reformist party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), or Pakistan Movement for Justice, past its rivals in the 2018 national elections and propelled himself into the prime minister’s office in Islamabad.

In a televised victory speech, Khan promised a new era.

“We will establish supremacy of the law,” he said. “Whoever violates the law, we will act against them. Our state institutions will be so strong that they will stop corruption. Accountability will start with me, then my ministers, and then it will go from there.”

Now leaked documents reveal that key members of Khan’s inner circle, including cabinet ministers, their families and major financial backers have secretly owned an array of companies and trusts holding millions of dollars of hidden wealth. Military leaders have been implicated as well. The documents contain no suggestion that Khan himself owns offshore companies.

Among those whose holdings have been exposed are Khan’s finance minister, Shaukat Fayaz Ahmed Tarin, and his family, and the son of Khan’s former adviser for finance and revenue, Waqar Masood Khan. The records also reveal the offshore dealings of a top PTI donor, Arif Naqvi, who is facing fraud charges in the United States.

Pakistan’s Finance Minister Shaukat Fayaz Ahmed Tarin gestures during a press conference. Image: Farooq Naeem/AFP via Getty Images

The files show how Chaudhry Moonis Elahi, a key political ally of Imran Khan’s, planned to put the proceeds from an allegedly corrupt business deal into a secret trust, concealing them from Pakistan’s tax authorities. Elahi did not respond to ICIJ’s repeated requests for comment. Today, a family spokesman told ICIJ’s media partners that, “due to political victimisation misleading interpretations and data have been circulated in files for nefarious reasons.” He added that the family’s assets “are declared as per applicable law”.

In one of several offshore holdings involving military leaders and their families, a luxury London apartment was transferred from the son of a famous Indian movie director to the wife of a three-star general. The general told ICIJ the property purchase was disclosed and proper; his wife didn’t reply.

The revelations are part of the Pandora Papers, a new global investigation into the shadowy offshore financial system that allows multinational corporations, the rich, famous and powerful to avoid taxes and otherwise shield their wealth. The probe is based on more than 11.9 million confidential files from 14 offshore services firms leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with 150 news organizations around the world.

The window into the personal finances of individual Pakistani generals is especially rare and provides a glimpse at how top military officers – known in Pakistan as “The Establishment” – use offshore to quietly enrich themselves while maintaining, until now, the military’s image as a bulwark against civilian corruption.

In the 48 hours leading up to the publication of the Pandora Papers, a Pakistani television station, ARY-News, reported that, “the owner of two offshore companies registered at a similar address as of Prime Minister Imran Khan has revealed that they were registered by him on a different address and denied any role of the premier in this regard.” The story also attributed the information to “a database of the offshore companies.”

ARY-News is not an ICIJ partner and doesn’t have access to ICIJ data.

In its reporting prior to publication, ICIJ had asked Khan about the same companies. A Khan spokesman told ICIJ that the prime minister had no link to either, adding that two houses in the same neighborhood share an address, providing a map as evidence.

The spokesman also told ARY-News that Khan denied any connection to the companies, adding that their owner “never met Imran Khan face to face and it may however be possible that they had attended an extended family function.”

The Pandora Papers investigation exposes civilian government and military leaders who have been hiding vast amounts of wealth in a country plagued by widespread poverty and tax avoidance.

The newly leaked records reveal the use of offshore services by Pakistan’s elites that rivals the findings of the Panama Papers, which led to Sharif’s downfall and helped propel Imran Khan to power three years ago.

Today, a few hours before the Pandora Papers’ publication, Khan’s spokesperson told a press conference that the prime minister, “has no offshore company but if any of his ministers [or] advisers have it will be their individual acts and they will have to be held accountable.”

An Unaccountable Military Elite

Khan’s anti-corruption rhetoric resonated in Pakistan, where the military has pointed to what it calls the corruption and ineptitude of civilian politicians to justify overthrowing democratically elected governments three times since the country’s founding in 1947.

Military autocracies have ruled Pakistan for almost half the country’s history. They have been bolstered by support from the U.S and NATO countries, which have relied on Pakistan’s support as a bulwark against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and, later, the Taliban.

The military also claims legitimacy as the nation’s protector against longtime adversary and nuclear rival India.

Over the decades, the military and its secretive spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, have repeatedly stoked anti-India animus, even at the cost of angering Pakistan’s Western allies.

Foreign policy analysts have accused the military of playing a double game, receiving billions of dollars in U.S military support while continuing to work with members of the Afghan Taliban.

One legacy of colonial rule is the military’s wealth. The military’s combined business holdings amount to Pakistan’s largest conglomerate, and it controls 12% of the country’s land. Many of the landholdings are owned by current or former senior leaders.

The Pandora Papers reveal that in 2007, the wife of Gen. Shafaat Ullah Shah, then one of Pakistan’s leading generals and a former aide to President Pervez Musharraf, acquired a $1.2 million apartment in London through a discreet offshore transaction.

The property was transferred to Gen. Shah’s wife by an offshore company owned by Akbar Asif, a wealthy businessman who has opened restaurants in London and Dubai. Asif is the son of the Indian film director K Asif. The younger Asif once met with Musharraf at London’s Dorchester Hotel to ask for an exception to Pakistan’s 40-year ban on Indian films to allow the release there of one of his father’s most acclaimed movies. Musharraf granted the exception and later lifted the ban.

The leaked documents show that Asif has owned a multimillion-dollar property portfolio through a web of offshore companies.

One of those companies, called Talah Ltd. and registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), was used to transfer the London apartment to Shafaat Shah’s wife. Talah bought an apartment near the Canary Wharf financial district in 2006. The next year, Asif transferred ownership of the company to Fariha Shah.

Asif’s sister, Heena Kausar, is the widow of Iqbal Mirchi, a senior figure in a leading organised crime group, D-company. Mirchi was at the time under sanction as a drug trafficker by the U.S. Before his death in 2013, Mirchi was one of India’s most wanted men.

Gen. Shah told ICIJ that the purchase of the London apartment had been made through a former army colleague then acting as a consultant to London real estate firms, not through any personal connection to Asif. Gen. Shah said the flat “was named” to his wife because “I already had properties in my name while she did not have any and to balance tax deductions.”

Shah said that his wife has never met Asif and that he met him just once, while an aide to Musharaff, when Asif briefly lobbied the president for his father’s film “in the corridors of Dorchester Hotel when he had accompanied the hairstylist, who had come to cut Mrs Musharraf’s hair.”

Insights into the private wealth of top military officers and their families are exceedingly rare; journalists who have written about the military within Pakistan have been jailed, tortured and killed.

The Pandora Papers also reveal that Raja Nadir Pervez, a retired army lieutenant colonel and former government minister, owned International Finance & Equipment Ltd, a BVI-registered company. In the leaked files, the firm is involved in machinery and related businesses in India, Thailand, Russia and China. Records show that in 2003, Pervez transferred his shares in the company to a trust that controls several offshore companies.

One of the trust’s beneficiaries is a British arms dealer. According to U.K. court documents, one of the trust’s other companies has helped broker arms sales from Belgian manufacturer FN Herstal SA to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., a state-owned Indian defense company.

While he owned International Finance & Equipment, Pervez also held several high-level positions in Pakistan’s government. He was elected to the National Assembly in 1985 and later joined Khan’s party. Pervez did not respond to reporters’ questions.

Another influential former military leader who shows up in the leaked documents is Maj. Gen. Nusrat Naeem, the ISI’s onetime director general of counterintelligence. He owned a BVI company, Afghan Oil & Gas Ltd, that was registered in 2009, shortly after his retirement. He said that the company had been set up by a friend and that he didn’t use it for any financial transactions.

Islamabad police later charged Naeem with fraud related to the attempted purchase of a steel mill for $1.7 million. The case was dropped.

The Pandora Papers also bring to light the notable offshore holdings of close relatives of three senior military figures.

Umar and Ahad Khattak, sons of the former head of Pakistan’s air force, Abbas Khattak, in 2010 registered a BVI company to invest what documents call “family business earnings” in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and real estate.

The Khattaks did not respond to reporters’ questions.

In an example involving intergenerational wealth transfer, Shahnaz Sajjad Ahmad inherited a fortune from her father, a retired lieutenant general, through an offshore trust that owns two London apartments, purchased in 1997 and 2011 in Knightsbridge, a short walk from Harrods. She, in turn, set up a trust for her daughters in 2003 in Guernsey, a tax haven in the English Channel. Her father was a favorite of Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, the country’s first military dictator (1958-1969). After her father retired from the army, he founded one of Pakistan’s biggest business conglomerates. Ayub Khan’s son later married into the family and sits on the boards of several of the group’s businesses.

Shahnaz did not respond to ICIJ’s requests for comment.

Taken together, the findings offer a portrait of an unaccountable military elite with extensive personal and family offshore holdings.

‘A Defining Moment’

As Pakistan’s ultimate political arbiter, the military would eventually test Imran Khan’s reformist ideals.

Born in 1952, Khan was the son of a Lahore civil engineer, and he enjoyed the privileges of Pakistan’s insular, and insulated, upper class. When the electricity failed, elites could turn on generators. If hospitals were substandard, they flew abroad for care.

“I was from that privileged class that was not affected by the general deterioration in the country,” Khan wrote in his 2011 autobiography, “Pakistan: A Personal History”.

Khan’s elite boarding school, Aitchison College, was named for the colonial administrator who founded it. Lessons were in English; boys caught speaking Urdu during school hours were fined.

The education system replicated colonial values, Khan wrote, teaching elites that they should “look upon the masses with contempt” and that “the natives were not to be trusted.”

As a young man, he befriended future leaders of Pakistan, meeting Nawaz Sharif at a cricket club, stopping by for Sunday cheese and canape parties at the Oxford University lodgings of another future Pakistani prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. He also developed a reputation as a playboy and a denizen of London’s nightclubs.

Khan played his first cricket match for Pakistan’s national team in 1971, when he was just 18, became captain at the age of 29 and, 10 years later, led the team to victory in the 1992 World Cup.

In a country passionate about cricket, Khan’s athletic feats made him a national hero – and drew the attention of politicians hoping to capitalize on his popularity. Two of the Pakistan’s military leaders – Generals Musharraf and Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq – and Sharif, the three-time civilian prime minister, invited him to join their governments. He refused them all, later declaring in his autobiography that each administration was either incompetent or corrupt.

A Pakistani driver looks on as a poster of cricketer-turned-politician, Imran Khan, is seen on his rickshaw in Rawalpindi, ahead of the 2018 general elections. Image: Farooq Naeem/AFP via Getty Images

He wrote that he entered politics after the experience of building a cancer hospital in his mother’s memory in 1994 left him stunned both by the generosity of ordinary Pakistanis and the failings of their government: “I discovered how hard it was to achieve anything in Pakistan while also battling bureaucracy and corruption.”

In 1996, Khan founded the PTI party, vowing to root out corruption, address wealth inequality and break the hold of the country’s two political dynasties – those of the Bhutto and Sharif families – which he claimed ruled Pakistan like a “fiefdom.”

Among the early targets of Khan’s anti-corruption campaign was another powerful family, the Elahis, known in Pakistan as the Chaudhrys of Gujrat.

After Musharraf forcibly ousted Prime Minister Sharif in 1999, during his second term, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, a prominent political figure, organized the Pakistan Muslim League-Q to support the coup. The PML-Q, known for backing Pakistan’s military governments, remains closely aligned with the military.

Over the years Pakistan’s anti-corruption agencies have launched and dropped several investigations into his business dealings. Around 2002, Khan petitioned the national bank to investigate loans to Elahi’s company which had allegedly been written off. At one point he called him “the biggest dacoit in Punjab,” using an Urdu word for “bandit.”

Despite being a national hero and benefiting from well-funded campaigns powered by the enthusiastic support of Pakistanis abroad, Khan remained a political outsider, in part because he refused to make alliances with forces he called corrupt.

Middle-class and other reform-minded voters flocked to his 2013 campaign, waving cricket bats. And Khan gained a powerful ally: the military, then in a power struggle with both mainstream civilian factions. But the PTI gained just 35 of the 342 seats in the National Assembly that year.

Then Came The Panama Papers.

The revelations about then-Prime Minister Sharif and his family’s London real estate holdings, followed by the discovery that his oldest daughter forged documents in an attempt to cover up her ownership, played perfectly to Khan’s anti-corruption message and turbocharged his political fortunes.

“’The leaks are God-sent,” Khan said at the time. Taking stock of the impact on the country’s ruling elite a year later, he declared, “This is a defining moment in the history of Pakistan.”

Pakistan’s Supreme Court soon disqualified Sharif from office for falling short of constitutional requirements to be “truthful and trustworthy.” The ISI was involved in the investigation of Sharif. He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison on related corruption charges.

In the 2018 elections, Khan’s PTI secured a fourfold increase in National Assembly seats, bringing the party to the brink of power. Throngs of his supporters danced outside the party’s headquarters in Islamabad.

But Khan hadn’t won the outright majority and needed to form a government. Sharif and Bhutto’s parties, the target of years of his attacks, were not an option.

That left a coalition of smaller parties, led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the Elahis’ party. Khan made the deal.

A Fateful Political Alliance

Since taking office, Khan has continued to deploy anti-corruption rhetoric and rail against elites who, he has said on Twitter, “come to power and plunder the country.”

But analysts say Khan has disappointed his reform-minded supporters and has become widely viewed as a figurehead. “He doesn’t have a problem with the military ruling the country while they pretend that he’s in charge,” Aqil Shah, a visiting academic at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,told ICIJ.

Khan’s spokesperson, Shabhaz Gill, told ICIJ that the “PTI believed in the separation of powers,” and the military came under the power of the executive branch of the state.

The Pandora Papers reveal that Khan has surrounded himself with people – cabinet ministers and their families, donors and other political allies – who have holdings hidden offshore.

Shaukat Tarin, Khan’s finance minister, and members of Tarin’s family, own four offshore companies. According to Tariq Fawad Malik, a financial consultant who handled the paperwork on the companies, they were set up as part of the Tarin family’s intended investment in a bank with a Saudi business. He said that, “as a mandatory prerequisite by [the] regulator, we engaged with the Central Bank of Pakistan to obtain their ’in-principle’ approval for the said strategic investment.” The deal didn’t proceed.

Tarin didn’t respond to ICIJ’s questions. In a statement issued the day of the Pandora Papers’ publication, Tarin said: “The off-shore companies mentioned were incorporated as part of the fund raising process for my Bank.”

Omer Bakhtyar, the brother of Khan’s minister for industries, Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar, transferred a $1 million apartment in the Chelsea area of London to his elderly mother through an offshore company in 2018. The state anti-corruption agency has been investigating allegations that his family’s wealth inexplicably “ballooned” since Bhaktyar first became a minister in Pervez Musharaff’s government in 2004.

In a written statement to ICIJ, Makhdum Bakhtyar said that the anti-corruption agency’s investigation was founded on baseless allegations which had underestimated his family’s past wealth, and that it has so far not resulted in a formal complaint.

The son of Waqar Masood Khan, Khan’s chief adviser for finance and revenue between 2019 and 2020, co-owned a company based in the British Virgin Islands. Masood resigned in August amid a policy dispute. Khan told ICIJ that he did not know what his son’s company did. He said his son lived a modest life, and was not his financial dependent.

And Khan’s former minister for water resources, Faisal Vawda, set up an offshore company in 2012 to invest in U.K. properties, the Pandora Papers show. He resigned in March amid a controversy over his status as a dual U.S.-Pakistan national. Vawda told ICIJ that he has declared all worldwide assets held in his name to Pakistani tax authorities.

Gill, Khan’s spokesperson, said that Khan had passed an executive order requiring unelected members of his cabinet to declare their assets, in addition to the asset disclosures already required of members of the National Assembly under Pakistani law.

Khan’s financial backers are also prominent in the files.

Naqvi, the financier and major donor to Khan’s 2013 campaign, owned several offshore companies. The files show that in 2017, Naqvi transferred ownership of U.K. holdings – three luxury apartments, his country estate and a property in London’s suburbs – into an offshore trust operated by Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank declined to respond to ICIJ’s concerning the beneficiaries of the trust.

The next year, he presided over the spectacular collapse of his Dubai-based private equity firm, Abraaj Group.

U.S prosecutors charged Naqvi with engineering a $400 million fraud against Abraaj investors and this year persuaded a court to allow his extradition from the U.K. Naqvi has denied wrongdoing.

Tariq Shafi, a leading businessman and another PTI donor, held $215 million through offshore companies, the records show.

Neither Shafi nor Naqvi responded to ICIJ’s questions.

The documents offer an unusually detailed look at how a top political figure attempted to hide proceeds from an alleged misuse of public funds with the help of an elite offshore service provider.

The politician is Moonis Elahi, whose father founded the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party holding Khan’s fragile coalition together.

‘Several Corrupt Land Development Projects’

Scandals linked to the Elahi family have become a regular feature of Pakistani politics over the years, but have rarely resulted in legal consequences.

In 2007, for instance, authorities found that the Bank of Punjab, owned by the Elahi-led provincial government, had made a reported $608 million in unsecured loans, many to companies owned by the bank’s directors or people with political connections. When the loans went bad, the provincial government ultimately paid to bail out the bank.

In January 2016, Moonis Elahi, then a member of Punjab’s provincial legislature, met with officials at Asiaciti Trust, a financial services provider that specializes in offshore wealth management. Records show that Elahi told Asiaciti staff that he wanted to invest money from the 2007 sale of land owned by Phalia Sugar Mills, an Elahi family business.

The records show that Asiaciti officials asked Elahi about his past legal problems. He provided them with a court document clearing him of fraud charges unrelated to the Bank of Punjab scandal.

After the meeting, documents show, Asiaciti designated Elahi as a “politically exposed person” or PEP — a legal term denoting a corruption risk related to a client’s status as a public official.

Singapore’s anti-money-laundering laws require that management at professional firms like Asiaciti approve any business done with PEPs. The firms also have to establish the source of a PEP’s wealth and of the specific funds to be invested, and they have to take other steps to guard against money laundering.

Asiaciti commissioned Thomson Reuters Risk Management Solutions,a unit of the financial information giant, to conduct an “enhanced due diligence” check.

Thomson Reuters produced a 19-page report detailing allegations of Elahi’s involvement in “several corrupt land development projects,” including that he set up a fake company, fraudulently obtained loans and sold land at inflated prices to government agencies.

The report noted that the Bank of Punjab had filed a complaint with Pakistan’s anti-corruption agency against the Elahi family, alleging that under the “influence” of Moonis Elahi’s father, the bank had made an illegal loan to the buyer of the family’s Phalia Sugar Mills property.

On Feb. 15, 2016, records show, Asiaciti accepted Moonis Elahi as a client, despite the report’s findings.

Elahi provided Asiaciti with the contract from the $33.7 million Phalia Sugar Mills sale as the source of the funds he wanted to invest, records show. In other words, Elahi asked Asiaciti to invest the proceeds of an allegedly corrupt loan obtained from a state-owned bank.

The records don’t say whether Asiaciti asked about the Bank of Punjab’s allegations. The bank did not respond to questions from ICIJ’s partner, The Guardian, about the loan, including what became of its complaint the anti corruption agency, citing client confidentiality.

A spokesperson for Asiaciti said that the firm maintained a strong compliance program, and that their offices have all passed audits for anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing practices.

“However, no compliance program is infallible – and when an issue is identified, we take necessary steps with regard to the client engagement and make the appropriate notifications to regulatory agencies,” the spokesperson said.

They said that ICIJ’s reporting was based on incomplete information but declined to elaborate.

Asiaciti registered a trust in low-tax Singapore and proposed to use part of the proceeds of the Phalia Sugar deal to invest in another Punjab sugar company, RYK Mills, in which Elahi already held a stake.

The plan called for a trust to hold an investment vehicle, funded by the “sale of a sugar mill,” that would own two properties in the U.K.

But, records show, when Asiaciti advised Elahi of its legal obligation to share his “financial information with the relevant tax authorities” – in this case, Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue – he balked.

Records show that Asiaciti received a phone call from Elahi. He wanted to scrap the trust.

“Moonis,” an Asiaciti manager wrote in a memo, “has concerns about the … reporting requirements.”

According to the memo, Elahi preferred to hold the investments in a U.K.-registered trust in his wife’s name; as a U.K. tax resident, she would not be subject to the same disclosure requirements.

“It appears that Moonis has no connection” to that trust, the memo says.

Less than a month after the phone call, Asiaciti prepared the paperwork to terminate Elahi’s trust. The following year, public records show, Elahi’s wife used a U.K. shell company to transfer an $8.2 million London apartment overlooking the River Thames to a woman named Mahrukh Jahangir, who then filed a U.K. Land Registry document generally used by joint owners and trustees. The transfer was not for “money or anything of monetary value,” according to public records.

A woman with the same name as Jahangir appears as a 9.4% shareholder in the RYK Mills – the business targeted as an investment in Elahi’s talks with Asiaciti. ICIJ tried to contact Jahangir for comment but did not receive a response.

Neither Elahi nor his wife disclosed ownership of the apartment or RYK assets in their official declaration of interests from 2017 as part of his candidacy to become a member of the National Assembly.

The Elahi family have ignored multiple attempts to seek comment concerning the allegations concerning the Phalia Mills sale, Moonis Elahi’s dealings with Asiaciti, or the U.K. based trust he intended to set up.

A New Minister

In April, Pakistan’s Federal Investigations Agency announced a criminal probe into price fixing in the powerful sugar industry, naming RYK Sugar Mills among the companies allegedly involved.

The industry dominates the valuable agricultural land of Punjab and is one of the biggest water users in one of the most water-stressed countries in the world. It is also among the world’s largest producers of sugarcane and uses enough water each year to fill Australia’s Sydney Harbour more than 45 times.

On Twitter, Elahi acknowledged that he “indirectly” held shares in RYK Mills, though he wasn’t involved in the company’s management.

Responding to news of the criminal probe, Khan, in a speech, called out the “sugar mafia,” which he characterized as a “powerful elite” that set itself above the rule of law and frequently sought to “blackmail the government.”

In June, Khan announced a new appointment to his cabinet: He named Moonis Elahi minister for water resources.

Additional reporting: David Conn, Shah Meer Baloch