ISLAMABAD: The Election Commis­sion of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday reserved its judgement on pleas seeking to restrain its scrutiny committee from conducting audit of foreign funding of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).

The PTI had filed two complaints with the ECP — one challenging the terms of reference (ToR) of the scrutiny committee that allows PTI accounts to be scrutinised in the presence of petitioner and PTI founding member Akbar S. Babar, and the other asking for keeping the entire scrutiny process secret.

The committee, formed by the ECP through its March 12 order, commenced the scrutiny of PTI foreign funding on April 3 this year. The committee, headed by the director general law and comprising two auditors from the defence establishment, could not make significant headway as the PTI failed to submit financial documents requisitioned by raising objections to its ToR and demanding secrecy of the scrutiny process.

On Monday, the PTI complaints were heard by a full bench of the ECP headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) retired Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza and comprising four other members of the commission.

Babar Awan, who replaced Anwar Mansoor Khan as PTI’s legal counsel, argued to justify the alleged mala fide interest of the petitioner in filing the case. He said news reports on the scrutiny process were an attempt to malign the PTI and its chairman Imran Khan. At this, the CEC remarked that it was a common practice now to report details of case proceedings even though the matter might be sub judice at the highest level.

The petitioner’s counsel Syed Ahmad Hassan Shah rebutted the arguments of Babar Awan, citing the constitutional right of any member of any party to seek details about its financial matters. He said the PTI had failed to provide any evidence about the expulsion of the petitioner from the party. He also read from a letter of the petitioner written to Imran Khan on Sept 11, 2011, demanding an action on precisely the same allegations that subsequently formed the basis of the foreign funding case.

He said the PTI applications were only meant to further delay scrutiny of its accounts in an attempt to escape the liability of its actions in receiving massive funds from prohibited sources.

Petitioner Akbar S. Babar, on special permission, addressed the bench and said loyalty to the state came before loyalty to any party or its leader. After hearing the arguments, the ECP reserved its verdict to be announced on May 30.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2018