The 'timely' in this situation appears to be more 'coincidence', unless you're suggesting that the 'Establishment' was behind the Panama Papers leaks. The Sharif's botched their own responses to the allegations (especially in court) and while you could argue judicial overreach, that isn't something new and not something that should automatically be blamed on the 'Establishment'.
Apologies in advance if this reply becomes too verbose, it would be interesting to have this discussion, maybe we could continue in Aam Guftagu if it gets too out of hand, but anyway... Someone more learned than me on legal matters can better assess this verdict that the bench reached unanimously which led to NS' disqualification and resignation. For sure it seemed judicial overreach to me, but beyond that, the articles cited were related to one's character, he was not convicted for corruption. That seems beyond overreach to me.
In a country where a former dictator was then yet to be convicted for clear, blatant, irrefutable and multiple counts of high treachery years after the fact. I have to ask myself whether it is just an epic coincidence that NS on one hand, who is an opponent of the establishment was disqualified on a misdemeanor which at best can be said was motivated by judicial overreach, while also being sitting PM at the time. Whereas the other, long since fled the country and could be easily convicted on multiple clear cut counts of high treason, but his sentencing was delayed by judicial hesitancy and possibly the world's most robust and far reaching legal defense courtesy of the establishment. Only in Pakistan can such dichotomies exist!
Besides, in my opinion, this argument that they failed to provide adequate legal defense in court should not be grounds for disqualification, certainly we know it wasn't grounds for any conviction. 62/63 was thus used as an excuse to disqualify him despite no conviction. I've heard of athiests criticising 'God of the gaps', but only in Pakistan can people see a 62/63 style 'jurisprudence of the gaps' being used against a sitting PM. And just like the former, the latter has to be premeditated. To put it simply, imagine you were occupying some government office, if I accused you of corruption and you were not convicted of it, and no evidence could be found to prove your guilt, in Pakistan 62/63 says the suspicion alone is enough to disqualify you if you do not meet the moral requirements of my judicial bench. My satisfaction could easily be influenced by a myriad of factors, ranging from establishment influence, general perception of a guy like NS or yourself as being corrupt (minus the evidence since there was no conviction), judicial overreach/activism or point scoring, maybe I just want to leave a mark before I retire. Why it happened is one discussion. Should it have happened at all? No, absolutely not. Not in any sane republic.
Even if I grant that Maryam's defense was botched and mishandled, it does not excuse the strange and inexplicable process JIT-onward. To set aside the charges of corruption, not convict at all, but in passing disqualify based on character, all while the actual criminal court case was up in the air is beyond strange. And for a supreme court to first disqualify then pass the case on to a lower court, as if we would get any dissent from them, that's also absurd. One more absurdity, besides Khosa's language and demeanor in the proceedings is the fact that he was disqualified for life. In a case of disproportionate assets, the disqualification lasts a maximum of 5 years, yet without any conviction, our courts disqualified him for life.
This would lead me to conclude that at best, the judges were biased and did not follow correct or sane procedure and their extent went well beyond judicial overstep/activism. At worst it was what I suspect, which is that they were pressured as well as the other factors, the hand of the establishment can't be seen but I can the gaps where they might be. It's like how NASA looks for the presence of exoplanets in far away stars, they don't have to be seen in scopes for them to suspect their existence, you can look at the gravitational wobble of the star using doppler technique and thus arrive at the mass of planets around to cause that behavior.
Anyway, I digressed quite a lot here, let's continue this elsewhere if there's more to be looked at.
In my view, Pakistanis in general tend to have an over-inflated opinion about the extent of the Establishment's machinations, especially in the last decade or so. Former DG ISI Shuja Pasha (keep in mind he had been retired for a couple of years at that point) was suspected to be behind IK's dharna and attempts to unconstitutionally topple the PMLN government, but then former COAS Raheel Sharif is also given the 'credit' for stopping that unconstitutional overthrow.
The two claims appear contradictory - why would the Army allow serving or former senior officials to leverage their influence in favor of unconstitutional actions only to have the serving COAS step in (ostensibly with the support of the remaining Corps Commanders) and put an end to such machinations with no tangible gains? Either the Army has competing power centers (something that most familiar with the institution would strongly deny) or Shuja Pasha acted in his individual capacity and leveraged his influence, perhaps not in terms of tangible support from the military, but in terms of the psychological effect of a former DG ISI taking a position.
I would have to disagree here, actually the establishment's machinations are vastly underestimated by Pakistanis in my view. I want to qualify this further by saying that while their competence is not overestimated, the true extent of their political power and interference is vastly underestimated. I strongly hesitate at giving you examples that I know of, as they are for now, mere conjecture. When someone finally writes a book about them or mentions them, I'll be sure to quote them then. You will be surprised at the extents they go to.
And let's talk about Pasha being retired, I think you raise a valid question. But Nawaz Sharif has since directly blamed the incumbent intel chief DG ISI Zaheerul Islam. Khawaja Asif also named both then current and former DG ISIs, so to cast doubt on this basis is invalid imo. Actually, some of NS' aides urged him to look into the intel chief and some urged to move against him for the suspicions they had even at the time, he resisted the idea.
Now even if I were to accept the premise that Pasha a retired general was behind the whole thing, which I don't at all, it's still far too simplistic. These things are more complex, the establishment always gives the new government a chance and some tensions invariably develop, especially if that government doesn't like taking 'dictation' as NS said. These sort of plots have occurred in the past, operation midnight jackal was a fact, no conspiracy at all, it bares striking resemblance to a lot of the accusations leveled at the military today. I can only suspect that generals this time around learnt what became of the image of Gen. Aslam Beg and then DG ISI Gen. Kallu when IB spilled the beans on midnight jackal. BB was removed by such plotting, and a short while later, the establishment removed NS in 1993 too. Ex- DG ISI Gen. Asad Durrani also confirmed both stories. These are facts and not longer mere conjecture, and I believe that with time we'll be able to view the last 12 years of democracy in Pakistan with such clarity and the role of the establishment will be not nearly as murky as it currently is.