CEC orders against referring to PTI case as 'foreign funding'

• Order comes in response to PTI lawyer's objection.
• Lawyer maintains cause-list calls prohibited funding case the "foreign funding" case.
• CEC Sikandar says PTI lawyer's stance is correct.

ISLAMABAD: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja on Wednesday directed not to mention the PTI's case pertaining to prohibited funding for the party as the "foreign" funding case.

During the hearing of the case the in Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) today, PTI's lawyer Anwer Mansoor raised an objection over the case being referred to as "foreign funding case".

"We have maintained since the very first day that the case involves prohibited funding but the cause-list still mentions it as 'foreign funding case," Mansoor said.

At this, CEC Sikandar Raja ordered against referring to the case as "foreign funding case."

He, however, told Mansoor that his client also uses the "foreign funding" term for the case but since his stance is right, the directive has been passed in his favour.

PTI hid funds worth millions of rupees from ECP: report

The ruling PTI hid funds worth millions of rupees from the ECP, the report of an ECP scrutiny committee probing the party's funds had revealed on January 4.

The report stated that the PTI provided "false information" regarding the party's funding to the ECP. It said that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP's) bank statement revealed that the party had received Rs1.64 billion in funding.

According to the report, the party did not disclose funding worth more than Rs310 million to the ECP.

The scrutiny committee was formed in 2019 to audit foreign funding received by the PTI. The case began in 2014 when the party's founding member, Akbar S Babar, filed it.