LHC orders government to make Toshakhana records public

• Records from year 1990 to 2001 to be made public
• Data includes names of Imran Khan, Arif Alvi, Pervez Musharraf and others
• PM Shehbaz constituted committee to redesign Toshakhana policy

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday directed the government of Pakistan to make public the entire record of Toshakhana gifts received by the public office holders from 1990 to 2001.

The case in this regard had been heard by Justice Asim Hafeez, where while hearing a petition filed by Munir Ahmad through Advocate Azhar Siddique he ordered the government to public complete details of Toshakhana gifts.

Justice Asim Hafeez remarked that the records must not be hidden by the public, following which all the records of gifts received from other nations must be kept in front of the public.

Toshakhana, established in1974 is a department that keeps records of precious gifts given to public office holders including parliamentarians, bureaucrats, and officials by heads of other governments and states and foreign dignitaries.

The department is controlled by the cabinet division.

The federal government on March 12, declassified the Toshakhana details and uploaded a 466-pager document of details from 2002 to 2023 on the Cabinet Division’s website.

The data included details of all office holders that took gifts from other nations, including former presidents, prime ministers, ministers and government officers.

In the list were names of Pervez Musharraf, Shaukat Aziz, Yousaf Raza Gillani, Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan, Arif Alvi and Shehbaz Sharif.

However, the Toshakhana controversy made it to attention of entire nation after former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan was accused of hiding details of the gifts he received during his tenure in the government.

Following this accusation, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) also disqualified Imran Khan.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in June last year had constituted a ministerial committee to redesign the Toshakhana policy.

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