Imran adamant about his behaviour: CEC

Says PTI chief not ready to own apology submitted
by his counsel; ECP has received contempt petition
and notice to be issued to Imran

ISLAMABAD: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (retd) Sardar Muhammad Raza observed on Monday that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan was adamant about his behaviour as he was not ready to own the apology submitted by his counsel.

He said that the electoral body had received the contempt petition and would issue a notice to Imran Khan. The PTI once again failed to comply with the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) order of January 16 to produce the financial documents in the foreign funding case filed by the PTI's founding leader Akbar S Babar way back in November 2014.

In the last hearing of the case on January 16, the ECP took a strong exception to the contemptuous review application signed by PTI Chairman Imran Khan demanding a reconsideration of ECP’s December 1 order directing the PTI to produce the financial documents sought by the petitioner.

The PTI lawyers once again failed to appear before the ECP on Monday despite the public commitments of complying with the ECP's order to produce its financial documents. The five-member ECP bench, headed by the Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Sardar Muhammad Raza, asked about the absence of PTI lawyers from the court.

The petitioner’s counsel, Syed Ahmed Hasan, stated that the absence of PTI lawyers was yet another show of defiance by the PTI to the constitutional body performing its constitutional functions.

He explained the nature of the Contempt of Court petition submitted against Imran last Friday by Akbar S Babar. He said that despite the written and unconditional apology of PTI’s counsel on January 16, the PTI chairman continued to defy the writ of a constitutional body by refusing to own the apology submitted by his counsel.

The petitioner’s counsel read out the media statements of Imran whereby he disowned the PTI lawyer’s unconditional apology before the ECP. The CEC noted that the contempt petition had been received and a notice would be served on Imran Khan to respond to the petition as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him for allegedly maligning a constitutional body.

The documents sought by the ECP included bank statements of PTI foreign accounts allegedly concealed from the ECP and the accounts of PTI employees in whose accounts allegedly millions of rupees were received from illegal sources, including hundi as alleged, and registration and transmittal of over $3 million from two limited liability companies registered with the PTI chairman’s signatures.

The next date of hearing was set for February 21, 2017. Meanwhile, talking to the media outside the ECP, Babar, who was once the linchpin of the party until he developed differences with Imran in September 2011 on internal corruption, condemned the absence of PTI lawyers from today’s hearing despite commitments.

He said by not complying with the ECP orders to produce the financial documents, Imran had belittled all his high sounding statements on morality of leadership. His refusal and defiance of a constitutional body in itself could be conceived as an admission of guilt otherwise what was holding him back from producing the financial documents sought by the ECP for over a year.

Babar lamented that instead of producing documents as publicly claimed by the PTI lawyer on January 22, no PTI lawyer appeared before the ECP to once again delay the proceedings. He said Imran Khan denied the corruption allegations with the argument that he was never a minister.

‘Double Shah’, who looted billions of rupees of the public money, was also never the minister of finance, Babar quipped. He said Imran would be held accountable for the billions of rupees collected from legal as well as illegal sources as he could run but would not be allowed to hide to avoid justice in the foreign funding case.

He said Imran claimed that there were two sets of justice – one for the poor and one for the rich but forgot the third type that he practiced i.e. the law of the jungle. He said his commitment for accountability was that instead of destroying corruption in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Imran has destroyed the entire accountability process by making the KPK's Ehtesab Commission redundant.