ECP has jurisdiction in party funding case

ISLAMABAD: In what could be a setback to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday with consensus passed a short order, rejecting its plea of questioning the commission’s jurisdiction in the PTI foreign funding case.

The five-member bench of the Election Commission here announced the verdict on the maintainability issue after hearing afresh the arguments of the PTI counsel Anwar Mansur Khan and the petitioner Akbar S Babar’s counsel Syed Ahmed Hasan. 

In its short order, the chief election commissioner also ordered the PTI to produce all the financial records sought by the petitioner as per its earlier order of April 1, 2015 and December 1, 2016 on May 17, 2017, the next hearing date set for the case.

The case was first filed in November 2014 by PTI’s Akbar S Babar, who is a founding member and former Central Vice President of the party after he developed differences over internal party corruption and violation of laws in managing the PTI donations and funds. 

The petitioner, who has been fighting a protracted campaign, in the Election Commission, the Islamabad High Court and on the media to unmask alleged corruption in the party, had accused that almost dollars 3.0 million of illegal foreign funds had been received.

These funds were collected through two offshore companies registered under Imran Khan’s signatures and that money was received through 'Hundi' from the Middle East in front accounts of PTI employees as well foreign accounts used to collect funds were concealed from the annual audit the PTI again failed to submit Imran’s response to the contempt petition filed by Babar on PTI’s review application filed on January 8, 2017 when the ECP ordered it to produce financial documents. 

PTI’s lawyer yet again sought more time to submit Imran’s response to an application filed by Babar, accusing him of contempt of Election Commission  for accusing it of political bias in hearing the foreign funding case. The ECP granted more time to be heard again on May 17 next.

Talking to the media outside the Election Commission, after the hearing, the petitioner to the case and leader of the PTI Founders Group, Babar welcomed the ECP verdict exercising its jurisdiction over the case and termed it as a landmark decision to exercise its constitutional mandate in accordance with law to scrutinize PTI accounts. 

He said the verdict would go a long way in regulating political parties under the law and help in transforming them from personal fiefdoms to political institutions that can regularly offer fresh and credible leadership to the people.

Babar maintained that to save PTI from irreversible damage, it should open its accounts before the ECP instead of hiding behind stay orders and other technicalities. “The PTI should offer the Election Commission of Pakistan to conduct a detailed forensic audit of its accounts to establish the scale and scope of the alleged corruption and violation of relevant laws and hold the guilty accountable according to law,” he proposed.

The former one of the closest aides of Imran, said instead of lecturing society on morality, Imran should first apply the same moral standards on himself and his party otherwise his lectures are meaningless and hollow rhetoric.

He said PTI Founders Group rejects plans to hold ‘sham intra party elections’ under a recently-appointed PTI Chief Election Commissioner Azam Swati accused of vote buying during the 2012 intra party elections and held accountable by a two-member inquiry committee headed by Gen (R) Ali Kuli Khan.