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Thursday March 28, 2024

Foreign funding case: ECP rejects PTI’s request to stay proceedings

By Mumtaz Alvi
August 17, 2017

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday rejected a PTI application, seeking stay of the foreign funding case proceedings and gave it the ‘last chance’ to produce the long sought financial records by September 7.

The commission resumed hearing after the PTI had sought a long delay and agreed to daily hearings from August 16 onwards to conclude the case. However, much to the surprise of everyone, senior PTI lawyer Anwar Mansoor Khan appearing on behalf of Imran Khan and PTI submitted a stay application seeking to suspend the proceedings.

When the Chief Election Commissioner Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza questioned the development, the PTI counsel insisted that the Supreme Court had taken cognizance of the matter, where the ECP was also a respondent and therefore the proceedings should be suspended until the Supreme Court’s final judgement in that case.

He said the ECP lawyer in the Supreme Court had submitted a detailed statement on the case showing the ECP bias. The CEC responded by stating that how could narrating a fact sheet of the case be construed as bias. He also asked the PTI Lawyer why it had not sought a stay order from the Supreme Court.

The petitioner, Akbar S Babar’s lawyer, Syed Ahmed Hasan narrated a long list of PTI attempts to delay the case. He said the PTI had disregarded about 21 ECP orders and refused to comply with them on one pretext or another. 

He said the latest attempt to stay proceedings comes on the heels of their commitment to proceed with the case on a daily basis. He said the PTI must not be allowed to make a mockery of the entire justice system.

The case has been pending since November 2014 and the PTI continues to refuse production of documents and accounts sought by the ECP since April 2015. He said the prayer of the case in the Supreme Court was different to the foreign funding case.

In the foreign funding case, evidence has been presented of prohibited funds received by the PTI from the USA and concealment of accounts in the UK and elsewhere. He said a PTI Special Audit Report (SAR) has already verified their allegations of financial impropriety.

He said, “All we are demanding is that PTI accounts must be thoroughly probed to ascertain the entire scope and scale of illegal funding followed by appropriate action under law”. The ECP announced the judgement after short break and rejected the PTI stay application. 

In a short order read out to the waiting media persons, the ECP announced that the PTI must comply with the production of documents by September 7 when hearing of the case would resume.

The foreign funding case was filed by Babar, PTI founding member and former Central Vice President of the party, in November 2014 after developing differences with Imran over alleged internal PTI corruption and violation of laws in collecting and using party funds.

The hearings have remained inconclusive as the PTI has used different pretexts to delay proceedings and refuse submission of party accounts before the ECP first sought in April 2015.  Twice the PTI sought and failed to acquire a stay order from the Islamabad High Court to suspend the ECP scrutiny of its accounts and now seeks to stay as a similar case is being heard in the Supreme Court.

Afterwards, talking to the media outside the ECP, Babar condemned the delaying tactics of Imran and PTI by seeking stay orders.  He said only thieves and crooks run away from justice and accountability and those who claim to be fair present evidence to deny allegations of wrongdoings. Babar claimed that Imran had become a liability on the politics of change by betraying each and every commitment he made with the people.