ECP will announce decision on PTI foreign funding case tomorrow

ISLAMABAD, Aug 1,2022- The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will announce the decision on the prohibited funding case of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) tomorrow i.e Aug 2.

According to the ECP statement, the verdict in the PTI prohibited funding case will be pronounced on Tuesday at 10 am.

The Election Commission has issued a cause list to pronounce judgment on the prohibited funding case.

The PTI foreign funding case was pending for 8 years, the judgment of which was reserved on June 21.

In 2014, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder member Akbar S. Babar filed a case of prohibited funding of PTI in the ECP.

During the 8-year-long hearing, PTI sought adjournment 30 times and filed 6 pleas challenging the jurisdiction of the ECP or declaring the case inadmissible.

Foreign funding case decision expected within week

In the case, PTI changed 9 lawyers, during the hearing, Election Commission directed PTI, 21 times to provide documents and financial records.

Election Commission set up Scrutiny Committee in 2018 to check PTI funding, which held 95 meetings.

PTI filed 4 petitions against the petitioner’s presence in the committee while the Scrutiny Committee issued orders 20 times asking PTI to provide relevant documents.

The Election Commission rejected the Scrutiny Committee’s report as incomplete in August 2020, after which the final report was submitted in January 2022.

The Scrutiny Committee constituted by the Election Commission kept secret the eight volumes obtained by the State Bank related to the PTI Bank statement and handed over the eight volumes to Akbar S. Babar on the instructions of the Election Commission.

The report stated that an amount of Rs 31 crore was not disclosed in the PTI documents, which were transferred from European and Middle Eastern countries as well as the US, Canada, UK, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Netherlands and Finland. Funds were received from other countries as well.

The Scrutiny Committee gave a questionnaire to the PTI regarding the details of funding from the US and other countries, but there was no clear answer and the party did not give access to the foreign accounts.

According to the report, PTI did not disclose the accounts of MCB, Bank of Punjab and Bank of Khyber in the statements, while according to State Bank data, PTI has 26 bank accounts in Pakistan while they hid 14 bank accounts.

In response to the Scrutiny Committee report, PTI has disaffected 11 accounts and said that Asad Qaiser, Shah Farman, Imran Ismail, Mehmood Rasheed, Ahad Rasheed, Samar Ali Khan, Seema Zia, Najeeb Haroon, Jahangir Rehman, Khalid Masood, illegally opened in the name of late Naeem ul Haq and Zafarullah Khattak.