ECP asks Imran to respond to its notice by April 24

Polls supervisory body says the PTI will face contempt proceedings, if it fails to file a response

ISLAMABAD: Hearing a contempt plea in the PTI’s foreign funding case, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) bench headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEP) Sardar Mohammad Raza has asked PTI chief Imran Khan to respond to the contempt notice by April 24 or face action.

The foreign funding case was first filed in November 2014 by a PTI founding member and former central vice president Akbar S Babar, who alleged major corruption and illegal foreign funding of the PTI.

On Tuesday, hearing of the case resumed with the petitioner’s lawyer Syed Ahmed Hasan made detailed arguments in support of the ECP’s jurisdiction to hear the case.

He said the ECP was not only the competent body but the only body empowered under the Constitution to hear the case, which, he said, relates to regulation of political parties.

Hasan explained the background of the differences between Babar and Imran Khan when he first complained in August 2011 that the PTI Central Office was infested with corruption and was run by corrupt and dishonest people.



The counsel said no member of any political party could be expelled from the party without due process according to the political parties’ order 2002.  He said the PTI has not produced any document that showed that the petitioner was expelled from the party.

“It is the right of every member of a political party to seek access to financial documents under the law,” he said, adding that after the PTI chairman failed to set the party’s internal accounts in order, Babar was left with no option but to file the case in the ECP which is the only appropriate legal forum.

Hasan pointed out the law that empowered the ECP to debar all those political office holders who were found guilty of illegally managing party accounts including receiving foreign funds.

After the petitioner’s lawyer concluded his arguments, the CEC offered the PTI lawyer to make rebuttals. However, in the absence of the PTI’s senior lawyer Anwar Mansur Khan, the PTI junior lawyer once again requested adjournment for at least a week on health grounds.



Before adjourning the case, the CEC inquired why the PTI chairman had not filed any response to the contempt notice. He reminded the PTI’s junior lawyer about his commitment to submit the reply.

The CEC made it clear that by assuming that the ECP did not have power to hear the case, the PTI could not assume the right to abuse the constitutional body. Upon the commitment of the PTI junior lawyer to submit a response to the contempt notice by the next hearing, the CEC adjourned the case until April 24.

The CEC, however, noted that if the PTI failed file a response then it would face contempt proceedings.

Talking to the media outside the ECP, Babar said the case would prove to be landmark in freeing the political parties from the control of individuals ‘who act as monarchs’.

He said PTI was meant to provide a clean and competent leadership to people but it became part of the status quo, which is a negation of the very purpose why PTI was created.  “The case once decided will free the party of corrupt elements and allow genuine workers to rise in the party rank,” he said.