Sept 18 last date to submit funding details, ECP warns PTI
CEC chides PTI counsel for failure to submit party's funding details today despite several 'last' reminders
September 11, 2017
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) gave the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) until September 18 to submit details of its funding.
The ECP warned the party that it would take as fact the petitions submitted against it in case the PTI fails to submit funding details.
Earlier in the day, the ECP had reserved its decision in the foreign funding case against the PTI.
Expressing annoyance at the PTI for once again failing to submit its funding details, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (retd) Sardar Raza Khan informed the party’s counsel that the ECP will now announce its decision on its own.
“You had been directed to provide the details today…[but] you have been wasting our time for four years,” said the CEC.
The PTI counsel asked for two more weeks to submit the party’s funding details, to which the CEC responded, “What should we infer from your repeated delays?”
The PTI counsel informed the ECP that the Islamabad High Court has observed that a party’s funding details cannot be shared with other parties. The CEC responded that first the party should share with ECP its funding details and then worry about it being shared with others.
The CEC also expressed displeasure at the constant changing of lawyers by the PTI throughout the case.
The five-member bench, headed by the CEC, then reserved its decision on the PTI's failure to submit details. The decision is expected to be announced today.
Hearing PTI founding member Akbar Babar’s petition on September 7, the ECP had given PTI the ‘last chance’ to submits its funding details.
Speaking to the media after the hearing, Babar offered to appear before the Supreme Court to provide the facts of the case. “PTI has undertaken dubious funding sources. The documents they’ve submitted are false,” he claimed.
In 2014, Babar filed a petition in the ECP seeking the disqualification of PTI Chairman Imran Khan for allegedly obtaining funding from illegal sources and discrepancies in the party’s accounts.
He also claimed that funds worth $3 million were collected by the PTI chief, transferred from illegal channels from the Middle East to bank accounts of PTI members.
