Foreign funding case: ECP rejects PTI request for new date

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday rejected the latest request of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for yet another adjournment of its foreign funding case, and asked its junior lawyer if he was sure that the senior lawyer had gone abroad.

The ECP rejected the application for adjournment for health reasons of the senior lawyer. The PTI had filed request for another adjournment on the plea that its ninth lawyer, Anwar Mansoor Khan, was ill and he could not attend the proceedings of the case.

To this, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja asked the party’s junior lawyer if Anwar Mansoor Khan had gone abroad, as he had pleaded on March 1 while seeking an extended adjournment. The juniorThe petitioner’s lawyer Syed Ahmad Hassan Shah, however, proceeded with his arguments on the latest PTI applications, demanding exclusion of the petitioner Akbar S. Babar from the case and seeking secrecy of the documents requisitioned through the State Bank of Pakistan, which have already been handed over to the petitioner.

Shah stated that the latest application was another attempt to delay the case proceedings. He said the PTI should be fined for delaying the case. He read out parts of the ECP order dated October 10, 2019, which labelled the PTI attempts to delay the case as “historic abuse of law”.

The ECP reserved judgment on the latest PTI applications and scheduled the next hearing of the case for March 17 when the merits of the case would be discussed, based on the comments of the two parties on the ECP Scrutiny Committee Report, shared with them on January 4, 2022.

The over seven-year-old foreign funding case is expected to be reserved for judgment after the two parties conclude their arguments on the Scrutiny Committee Report.

Later, talking to the media outside the ECP, the petitioner and PTI founding member Akbar S Babar said the case was at its conclusive stage. He said the situation in the country was alarming as the threat of unrest was growing and, instead of acting in a responsible manner, the government was adding fuel to fire.

Meanwhile, CEC Sikandar Raja reprimanded Minister of State for Information Farrukh Habib for behaving contrary to judicial decorum. He grilled the minister for taking a stand against judicial decorum and expressed anger over his conduct.

When the hearing of the foreign funding case against PM Imran Khan was completed, the state minister reached dais and started asking questions from the CEC and insisted on a reply as to when a scrutiny committee on foreign funding against PMLN and PPP would be formed.

The CEC, while expressing his anger, asked why he was coming to the court unnecessarily and asking questions. “The PTI foreign funding case is a separate case. That case is different. Talk about a hearing date. Do not interfere in the court proceedings unnecessarily.”

After that, the state minister left the court quietly. Meanwhile, the ECP reconstituted the four-member scrutiny committee for the PPP and PMLN accounts and assets.

DG Law Muhammad Arshad will head it and other members include Additional Secretary Admin Manzoor Akhtar Malik, DG Political Finance Wing Masood Akhtar Sherwani and Khurram Raza of Auditor General of Pakistan. The committee will hold scrutiny of PPP, PMLN and any other political party.