Altaf Hussain, the founder of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), has decided to file an appeal against the judgement handed down by Insolvency and Companies Judge Clive Jones, which effectively deprives the self-exiled firebrand politician of Pakistan of six London properties worth around £10 million.
Speaking at a press conference at his party’s Edgware office, the MQM founder slammed the verdict, claiming that the judge ignored basic facts such as how his party was hijacked by Dr Farooq Sattar and other MQM leaders in Karachi who refused to let Hussain return to the MQM after his 22nd August 2016 speech, and then his voluntary relinquishment of powers to Dr Sattar and the Central Coordination Committee (CCC).
Hussain spoke after ICC Judge Clive Jones issued a decision in the £10 million property case, declaring that MQM leader and Federal Minister Syed Aminul Haque was correct to file a claim for the Trust’s properties; and that the real and legitimate MQM was based in Pakistan, and thus a beneficiary of the six London properties.
After the "disappointing”, "unfair,” and "shocking” judgement by the London High Court judge, Hussain noted that the British courts have a long-established tradition of fairness and justice "but this doesn’t imply that a sitting judge consciously or unwittingly cannot do an error”.
According to Hussain, the judge stated that the MQM founder "established a new association, performing from London after 22nd August 2016,” and this is the case.
Addressing his former loyalists, who now run the MQM from Karachi under the leadership of Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui and claimant Syed Aminul Haque, Hussain said, "You erased the name of Altaf Hussain from the constitution of the MQM-Pakistan, but my name is written on the hearts of millions of Muhajirs and Pakistanis.”
"What is inscribed in the hearts of millions of Pakistanis?” Hussain inquired. His supporters sang, "Altaf, Altaf, Altaf; Dilloon per jis ka raaj hai, Altaf hai, Altaf hai.”
“We have serious reservations over this decision. We are disappointed that the facts advanced by us during the trial were ignored altogether by the judge. The decision that has been delivered has strengthened our resolve. In my 50 years of struggle, I have fought against Pakistan’s corrupt feudal system and dictatorships. No other leader has the track record of political struggle as I have. I have never bowed before dictatorship,” he said.
Hussain was also joined to the news conference by his lawyer. "We were not anticipating this type of conclusion,” he stated. The only way forward for us is to file an appeal, and we have already begun the process of drafting our appeal.”
Insolvency and Companies Judge Clive Jones, sitting as a High Court Judge in the High Court of Justice Business and Property Court of England and Wales, ruled that "the MQM-P is the real MQM and its members are the true beneficiaries of the Trusts that control London’s properties which are currently under the control of Hussain”.
The judge concluded that MQM founder Altaf Hussain resigned from MQM-P following his address on August 23rd.
The ICC Judge Jones has ruled that the lawyer acting for Syed Aminul Haque of MQM-P has established that the MQM’s April 2016 Constitution was adopted and “It has not been established that the 2015 Constitution was adopted and on the balance of probability it was not”.
On 3 September 2020, Haque filed a case in the UK High Court on behalf of the members of "The Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P),” requesting that the court: remove or substitute the current trustees; grant relief to prevent misappropriation; and issue orders to recover trust assets, including rental income. The MQM-P claimed in the claim that Hussain and the other defendants had failed to keep the books and records required of them as trustees, as well as to account for their use of the properties, including the income received from them and the net proceeds of the sale, and that trust assets had been misused for personal and/or third-party use.
The case of Hussain and his associates was that MQM was registered as a political party in 1987 but from August 2016 its registration was prohibited by the “military establishment” and the MQM-P was hurriedly created after the speech in August 2016 as a result of a “military crackdown” on MQM “to enjoy the patronage and protection of the military authorities whilst masquerading as the same organisation as MQM to the outside world”.
Hussain’s defence contended that the MQM-P incorrectly told the Election Commission that the MQM had changed its name to MQM-P for the purpose of registering as a political party. The MQM-L told the court that MQM-P incorrectly registered the September 2016 Constitution in place of MQM’s constitution as adopted in October 2015, which replaced/amended the Constitution MQM had adopted by an amendment in 2012 ("the 2012 Constitution”), and that Hussain could not be removed as MQM’s founder and leader as the September 2016 Constitution purported.
Hussain has denied that he had already given up authority or otherwise stood down following his address on August 22, 2016. The MQM founder was not and could not be removed by the meetings on 31 August and 1 September 2016 and MQM remained in existence under his leadership, his lawyer argued.
