PTI has not submitted funding record since four years, ECP informs apex court

By
Abdul Qayyum Siddiqui
|

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has not submitted any record related to the party’s funding in the last four years.

The ECP counsel claimed the PTI deliberately hid this information from the ECP, terming it a ‘complete fraud’.

To this, Justice Faisal Arab observed that the ECP did not ask for the required information nor did the PTI submit it. He said it is the ECP’s job to inquire about funding information from political parties.

The three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, was hearing the foreign funding case against the PTI.

The chief justice (CJ) observed that the bench has heard detailed arguments in the case, filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi.

He said the bench has some queries it wants addressed, adding that the main issue is related to Article 6 (3) of the Political Parties Order 2002 which covers the jurisdiction of probing parties’ funding.

The ECP counsel stated that the PTI had received funds worth $23 million in recent years, alleging that some Indian Americans are also among those who have funded the party. He said the party has no record of the names or addresses of individuals who have donated to it.

When the CJ asked Abbasi’s counsel, Akram Sheikh, why the issue should not be sent to the ECP for further action, Sheikh said he will consult with his client and submit a response in the court.

The bench then adjourned the hearing till Wednesday.

After the hearing, Abbasi and other PML-N leaders lashed out at the PTI for failing to submit a satisfactory reply in court regarding the party’s funding.