ISLAMABAD: On the first day of perusal of PTI accounts on Tuesday, the ECPs Scrutiny Committee disallowed the use of laptops or computers by two chartered accountants, allowed by the ECP on behalf of the petitioner. It is pertinent to mention that the Election Commission of Pakistan, in its order of April 14, 2021, had authorised two financial analysts/chartered accountants to scrutinise the PTI accounts on behalf of the petitioner Akbar S Babar and the perusal of PTI documents was to begin on April 27 in line with the ECP order. It was learnt from sources, privy to the development, as the perusal of initial set of documents started, the PTI objected to the use of laptops by the two chartered accountants/financial experts, nominated by the petitioner. Ms Saima Tariq, Deputy Director (Law), who was supervising the process, initially allowed use of laptops. However, subsequently, on PTI's objection, the petitioner was told not to use laptops for data recording and analysis.
To this, the petitioner even offered to use ECP computers. Even, then he was asked to file an application for use of laptops to complete a formality. However, the application to use computers was turned down after several hours. After unsuccessfully pleading for use of laptops during the scrutiny process, the petitioner filed an application with the ECP to direct the Scrutiny Committee to allow use of laptops for scrutiny of PTI accounts.
The petitioner stated in the application that 'the use of laptops during the perusal process is essential to note down, compile, compare, evaluate and analyse voluminous financial documents in a limited time period of eight working days'. He maintained that the denial of the committee to use laptops is clearly an effort to impede and obstruct a transparent and credible perusal of documents submitted by the PTI.
He contended that after initial permission to use laptops and subsequent refusal by the Scrutiny Committee was yet another indication that the committee, headed by DG (Law), was doing everything in its power to derail the perusal process and justify three-year-long delay of the scrutiny process. He accused the DG (Law), who heads the Scrutiny Committee, of being completely partisan.
The petitioner requested that since today’s proceedings were lost on the issue of use of laptops and no perusal of any PTI document was possible, therefore, today should not be counted as part of the eight days perusal process authorised by the ECP. Through the application, he urged the Election Commission to direct the Scrutiny Committee to allow the use of laptops during the perusal process, failing which, the process will be a mere attempt to rubber stamp fake and forged documents.
In brief media chat, Babar stated that after the ECP's rejection of the Scrutiny Committee's initial report filed after 28/29 months in August 2020, it had lost all moral authority to continue and should have resigned. He said the committee today was functionally obstructing scrutiny instead of facilitating it.
"Instead conducting fact finding, it is creating obstacles in fact finding by refusing auditors to use laptops, an essential tool of financial analysts. By creating hurdles in complying with the ECP orders to complete scrutiny in eight days, the committee is trying to cover for its follies for not completing scrutiny in three years. Instead of taking a lead in investigating financial irregularities, a state institution is punishing me for doing my national duty,” he charged.
In a related development, ECP rejected PTI's review petition against the April 14, 2021 ECP order allowing auditors to peruse PTI accounts.
Meanwhile, the ECP has issued guidelines for the Presiding Officers to avert a controversy over supply of form-45 in the upcoming by-poll in NA-249 (Karachi). In its directions to the presiding officers, the ECP has asked them to send a picture of Form-45 in the presence of polling agents of the contesting candidates, to the returning officer and that location of the smartphone should be kept on while taking the picture.
The POs have been directed not to wait for the submission of the results if the network is down, and in such a case have been asked to immediately reach the returning officer’s office and submit the polling record in time. They have been directed to supply signed copies of form-45 to the polling agents. The ECP has also asked polling agents not to leave the polling station without obtaining copies of form-45.
Polling for Karachi’s NA-249 will be held on April 29. The seat had fallen vacant after PTI’s Faisal Vawda resigned from the National Assembly amid a controversy over his dual nationality. He is now a senator.