Foreign funding case: IHC seeks written arguments on ECP show-cause

ISLAMABAD: A larger bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) Thursday sought written arguments from PTI’s counsel on petition challenging the show-cause notice of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in prohibited funding case.

The court also instructed the lawyer to share the copy of arguments with Akber S Baber, the complainant in prohibited funding case. The larger bench headed by Justice Aamer Farooq and comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Baber Sattar heard the case.

At the outset of hearing, PTI lawyer Anwar Mansoor said that deposit of money in accounts had been declared as prohibited funding. The said amount was collected from abroad and sent to Pakistan, he added, saying what’s wrong in it if the company concerned itself admitted that this money was solely sent by it.

The lawyer adopted the stance that as per the procedure after the scrutiny of any party’s accounts a show-cause was used to be served and then a final decision was taken. But in this case, the ECP declared this notice as the final verdict and proclaimed PTI as foreign funded, he said.

The lawyer also gave reference of a verdict of the top court and a US law and asked how his party could be declared as foreign funded. He, however, admitted that the ECP had authority to collect the relevant data. The court asked the PTI leader to do paper work for it and submit written arguments on next hearing. The further hearing of the case was then adjourned till November 22.