ISLAMABAD: A three-member bench of the Election Commission of Pakistan on Wednesday adjourned the hearing of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s case against the ECP’s scrutiny committee.

The PTI had objected to the terms of reference (ToR) of the committee formed to investigate the issue of foreign funding to the party.

The PTI has also — once again — replaced its lawyer. Former attorney general Anwar Mansoor Khan was relieved of his duties over ‘health concerns’, and Babar Awan — the former Pakistan Peoples Party law minister who joined the PTI in 2017 — has officially replaced Mr Khan as the party’s legal representative.

Akbar S. Babar, a founding member of the PTI, had filed a petition against his former party in 2014 and has since been represented by Syed Ahmad Hassan Shah.

Mr Babar had alleged that the PTI leadership was involved in corruption and the party had been illegally funded over the years.

Babar Awan has officially replaced Anwar Mansoor Khan as the PTI’s legal representative

The committee, headed by the director general law and comprising two auditors from the defence establishment, was formed on April 3 and mandated by the ECP to investigate PTI accounts in one month.

However, the committee has so far failed to make any significant headway as the PTI failed to furnish the financial statements sought by the committee. The PTI, instead of facilitating the investigation, had objected to its ToR — including media reporting of the proceedings.

Newly appointed PTI lawyer Babar Awan sought more time to prepare his arguments for the case.

The petitioner’s lawyer Hassan Shah briefed the bench on the proceedings of the scrutiny committee, which could not carry out its mandate as the PTI failed to produce up to 10 financial instruments — including bank statements — sought by the investigation team.

Mr Awan, however, made an interesting remark, conceding that even if some funds were proven to be received from illegal sources, the maximum punishment accorded would be to seize those funds — and nothing more.

The bench, on his request, adjourned the hearing to May 28.

Talking to the media after the proceedings, Akbar S. Babar expressed the hope that the case would not be allowed to turn into yet another Asghar Khan case — in which the petitioner is dead and the case continues to be in trial.

He said the PTI and Imran Khan must not be allowed to operate beyond the reach of the law.

Mr Babar said that by refusing to hold himself — and his party — accountable before the law, Mr Khan continued to lose his apparent moral high ground, damaging his claim to lead the nation in an atmosphere of fairness and justice.

The foreign funding case — after being filed in 2014 — has faced several delays. It was in the pipeline for more than a year in the ECP as the PTI had filed a writ petition in October 2015, requesting the Islamabad High Court to restrain the ECP from investigating the party’s accounts.

In February 2017, the IHC remanded the case back to the ECP for a fresh review of its jurisdiction. In the same month, the ECP had accused the PTI of using “delaying tactics” and hiding behind stay orders to prolong the case. The ECP member from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Justice Irshad Qaiser, had pointed out that such delays were eroding the credibility of the commission.

On May 8, 2017, a fullbench of the ECP once again ruled that it had the jurisdiction over the case, claiming that the PTI had failed to produce any evidence over its assertion that the petitioner had been expelled from the party and, therefore, had lost the right to question PTI accounts.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2018