Pakistan HC orders Election Commission to decide on foreign funding case against PTI within a month

Pakistan High Court on Thursday ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to decide on the foreign funding case against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) within a month.

The Islamabad High Court Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani directed the ECP to decide the pending complaint within a "period of next 30 days by all means, after hearing the parties in accordance with the law," Dawn newspaper reported.

Justice Kayani said that if PTI received the funding from any prohibited sources then it would affect its status, including the chairman so it becomes important to dig out the truth.

"If any foreign funding has been received contrary to law and mandate of the Constitution, the petitioner has to face the music," the court judgement said.

It pointed out that the Supreme Court had not restricted the ECP in adopting any method to find out the truth regarding the foreign funding case, according to Dawn.

The foreign funding case is pending since November 14, 2014, and it was filed by PTI founding member Akbar S Babar who had alleged that there are some financial irregularities in the PTI's funding from Pakistan and abroad.

On January 4 this year, the ECP's scrutiny committee submitted its report on the PTI's foreign funding case after 95 hearings. The ECP's committee was formed in March 2018.

The report was based on eight volumes of records collected through the State Bank of Pakistan, proved that the PTI leaders had committed the violations of funding laws by allowing the collection of millions of dollars and billions of Pakistani Rupees without any source and details from foreigners, as per reported by Dawn.

Other than this, Justice Kayani also rejected the request to prevent giving access to case records to PTI's Babar and a request to remove him from the case proceedings.

This comes after PTI filed the petition in Islamabad High Court, challenging the ECP's decision of rejecting the above-mentioned plea of the party which was filed on January 25 and 31.

"The claim submitted by the petitioner (PTI) is not maintainable as petitioner itself is not able to demonstrate any of his legitimate rights when [it] itself is in agreement that respondent No 2 (Babar) can participate in the proceedings to the extent of information which he has provided to the scrutiny committee or the ECP, therefore, this petition is not based upon bona fide, rather filed with specific motive, just to stop respondent No 2 Akbar Sher Babar to participate in the proceedings, which has already been settled by this court in the previous proceedings," the court order was quoted as saying by Dawn.

"No restriction could be imposed upon ECP to adopt any process of inquiry, investigation, scrutiny to reach out the mandate of assigned duty in terms of Article 17(3)," the order added.

( With inputs from ANI )