PTI funding case: ECP rejects Babar’s request to use laptop during perusal

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan’s Director General Law, who heads the scrutiny committee, Monday got removed the first pile of documents of the PTI HBL statements, which were put before the committee for perusal, after the PTI strongly objected to it.

The Election Commission declined to allow use of laptops or other devices during perusal, as was requested by the petitioner of the foreign funding case of PTI, Akbar S Babar.

It was the second of day perusal, when the head of the committee was not around; last time, he had gone to attend funeral of spouse, while Monday, he had left for corona vaccination, it was learnt from the sources in the Election Commission.

Akbar S Babar’s lawyers agitated on non-production of documents to be perused and finally, around 2:00pm, two piles of documents were presented for perusal. To the disappointment of the petitioner and his counsel Syed Ahmad Hassan Shah, the first pile of documents was the voter list of PTI intra-party electoral list.

And, when the petitioner and his lawyer questioned the value of perusing PTI intra-party voter list, the documents were immediately removed. Whereas, the second pile of documents was PTI HBL bank statements. The moment perusal of the bank statements started, the PTI representatives protested and asked to why these bank statements were allowed to be perused.

To this, the ECP staff immediately called the DG Law for instructions, who ordered the removal of bank statements from the scrutiny table. This led to strong protests by the petitioner and his counsel.

On the second day of perusal, the two chartered accountants, allowed by ECP on behalf of the petitioner, continued the manual perusal of PTI documents. They are neither allowed to make copies of the documents nor allowed to make photos as the cell phones are deposited before conducting scrutiny. Later, talking to the media, Babar criticised the decision of the ECP not to allow laptops during scrutiny, terming it illogical.