PTI’s defamation case against Akbar S Babar dismissed

ISLAMABAD: The Additional District Judge, Islamabad, Muhammad Ali Warraich, has dismissed the defamation case filed by the ruling PTI on ‘behalf of PM Imran Khan’ against PTI Founding Member Akbar S Babar.

The case was filed in July 2019, wherein the PTI had alleged defamation and seeking recovery of Rs5 bn from Akbar S Babar on account of damages for criticising the PTI policies on the social media.

The dismissal order was issued on December 16, 2020. Advocate Badar Iqbal Chaudhry argued on behalf of Babar while Hassan Rasheed Qamar represented the PTI.

In all, the PTI has filed three defamation cases against Babar since the filing of the Foreign Funding Case in November 2014. One was withdrawn and two have been dismissed by the relevant courts.

The first defamation case was filed by the PTI against Babar in 2017 in the cort of Rawalpindi Additional Sessions Judge but was withdrawn for lack of evidence while the other ‘criminal’ defamation case was filed by PTI against Babar in January 2020, which was also dismissed in September 2020.

Babar has consistently denied the allegations and termed them “baseless, misconceived, false and malicious.” He has always claimed that criticism of party policies and actions of its leadership are constitutional rights under articles 17, 19, and 19A of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973.

He claimed that the defamation cases were filed with malicious intent to punish him for filing the foreign funding case that remains pending before the ECP for the last six years. He also claimed that the cases were filed to harass him into silence and deprive him of his fundamental right of expression and freedom of speech, as well as to deny the public of its fundamental right to information on matters of public importance.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission of Pakistan’s Scrutiny Committee of the PTI foreign funding case met here on Wednesday and it was learnt that the PTI submitted documents in response to the committee's latest questionnaire. For this purpose, the committee sought time for reviewing the latest documents before fixing the date of the next meeting.

The committee has denied sharing of documents with petitioner Akbar S Babar submitted by PTI, including the 23 PTI bank statements requisitioned by the SBP that were mostly concealed from the ECP by PTI.

On his part, Babar claims if the forensic audit of 10 companies could be completed in a few weeks for the sugar scam, a detailed forensic audit of PTI should not have taken almost three years now.

He claimed the PTI foreign funding case is a landmark case and he is only doing his national duty of setting examples. He said the people want an early conclusion of the long-delayed case. The ECP should hear and conclude the case pending for over six years, he added.