ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday decided to hear the foreign funding case of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on a daily basis to implement the Islamabad High Court’s order to dispose of the matter within 30 days.

According to the ECP, the daily hearing of the case will start from April 19.

The IHC issued the order after it dismissed an appeal of the PTI against the ECP order rejecting two PTI applications seeking dismissal of the foreign funding case and disassociating petitioner Akbar S Babar from the case and keeping the PTI documents secret.

Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani of the IHC in his detailed order had rejected the PTI’s petition as the law allowed Akbar S. Babar to participate in the case proceedings and held that the ECP as a constitutional body had the right to seek assistance of Babar and come to conclusions based on the merits of the case.

A report compiled by ECP’s scrutiny committee had emerged on January 4 confirming that the PTI received funding from foreign nationals and companies, under-reported funds and concealed dozens of its bank accounts.

The report also mentioned PTI’s refusal to divulge details of large transactions and the panel’s helplessness to get details of its foreign accounts and the funds it collected abroad.

According to the report, the PTI under-reported Rs312 million between FY2009-10 and FY2012-13. Year-wise details show that Rs145m was under-reported in FY2012-13 alone.

“A perusal of the chartered accountant’s opinion on the accounts of PTI for this period does not indicate any deviation from the reporting principles and standards,” the report points out.

It also called into question the certificate signed by PTI Chairman Imran Khan, submitted along with the details of his party’s audited accounts.

The report also referred to the controversy over allowing four PTI employees to receive donations in their personal accounts, but says it was out of the scope of its work to probe their accounts.

The ECP had on January 18 ordered access to all the PTI record and bank statements acquired through the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in July 2018.

The de-classified documents made public included all the documents sought by the ECP through the SBP in its letter dated July 3, 2018, including a list of all bank accounts maintained by the PTI anywhere in Pakistan from 2009 to 2013, with date-wise details of transactions, country-wise list of all fund transfer to the party’s accounts from abroad during 2009 to 2013 separately for each financial year, including names/particulars of remitters, and monthly bank statements of all the accounts maintained /operated by the PTI in Pakistan and abroad for each financial year i.e. 2009 to 2013.

All these records were kept secret by the ECP scrutiny committee since July 2018 despite vociferous demands of petitioner Akbar S. Babar for access to these critical documents.

The PTI foreign funding case is pending since November 14, 2014. The case was filed by PTI dissident Akbar Babar who had alleged serious financial irregularities in the party’s funding from Pakistan and abroad.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2022