Web Desk (LTN NEWS): Tuesday, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) decided to make a bigger bench to hear the PTI’s appeal against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision in the prohibited funding case.
Today’s hearing was led by IHC Acting Chief Justice Aamer Farooq. Anwar Mansoor, a lawyer for the PTI, was also there. Mansoor said that the party had questioned the “fact-finding report” made by the group that keeps an eye on elections.
He then said that money was moved from the main account to the provinces and that the details didn’t need to be shared. Mansoor asked the court to make sure that nothing would be done about the notice to the party.
Justice Farooq said, “The matter will be looked at by a bigger bench.” After that, the court moved the case to a bigger bench and put off the hearing until August 18. (Thursday).
Prohibited funding Case
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) ruled unanimously earlier this month that the party did get millions of dollars from 351 foreign companies and 34 foreign nationals, including a US-Indian businesswoman. The ECP then ordered a notice to be sent to the PTI, asking why the illegal funds it got shouldn’t be taken back.
The decision was made by a three-person ECP bench led by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikander Sultan Raja. The case was brought by PTI founder Akbar S. Babar and had been going on since November 14, 2014.
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The ECP also said that the party had only owned eight accounts before the commission and that 13 accounts were unknown. The commission also noticed that the party didn’t mention three accounts that were also run by the top leaders of the party.
The verdict also said that the PTI chairman submitted Form-I for five years (from 2008 to 2013), which was found to be “grossly inaccurate based on the financial statements obtained by this commission from SBP and other material on record.”
The PTI said that the decision backed up its claim that it had never received money from abroad, though it could have been illegal money. The government, on the other hand, saw the decision as a “charge sheet” for the “crimes” of the party and its leader, Imran Khan.
Last week, the party asked the IHC to overturn the ECP’s decision in the case against it that said it couldn’t get money from outside sources.
The main petition that the party filed said that the Supreme Court had looked into the matter and sent it back to the ECP so that all political parties accounts, including the PTI’s, could be looked at again. “Unfortunately, only PTI was picked on.”
The case against PTI, which was filed by PTI’s Additional General Secretary Omar Ayub, is about getting “funds from a prohibited source.”
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The petition said, “The party explained and reconciled each and every account through a financial expert, both orally and in writing, reconciling each and every transaction and explaining all amounts received with their reconciliation with the audited accounts.” But the respondent [ECP] passed the disputed fact-finding report without taking any of the arguments into account and without giving any reason for doing so.
The petition said that the ECP is not complete because it doesn’t have the full number of members that the Constitution calls for and doesn’t have enough people from all provinces. If that’s the case, doesn’t it disenfranchise the provincial representation on the ECP as envisioned by Pakistan’s Constitution, allowing manipulation and political interference from outside the ECP?”
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Ayub said that the ECP had not even looked at the information given by the PTI, let alone argued against it. He said that the ECP had “acted with pure malice, without using its mind, and has based its findings on fabricated facts, which were meant to hurt and tarnish the political image of the petitioner.”
The petition asked the court to stop the ECP’s decision and the “show cause” notice that was sent to PTI. It also asked the court to throw out the ECP’s report on foreign funding.
