ISLAMABAD: A five-judge Supreme Court bench has disqualified Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a unanimous verdict in the Panamagate case, thus cutting short his third stint in power.

Soon after the SC judgement, the PM House issued a terse statement saying that Nawaz Sharif, despite having reservations on the SC’s verdict, has stepped down from his post as the premier.

Sharif served as prime minister twice in the 1990s before he himself was ousted in a 1999 coup leading to a decade of exile. He won a third term as prime minister in a 2013 election.

According to ARY Islamabad Bureau Chief Sabir Shakir, the apex court has declared Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ineligible to rule in its historic judgement after corruption charges against him and and his family for stashing wealth abroad beyond known sources of income.

Under the court orders, the cases would be opened against Captain Muhammad Safdar, Maryam Nawaz, Hassan and Hussain Nawaz as well as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. A judgement should be announced within 30 days, the court said.

One judge will oversee the implementation of this order.

The court also ordered that all cases of the Sharif family including PM Nawaz Sharif be referred to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) within six weeks.

The bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, announced the judgement. Justice Khosa is the same judge who had given a dissenting note in the April 20 judgment with a quote from Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather and declared Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ‘disqualified’ for not being honest to the nation.