At long last: PTI opens its books to ECP

Foreign funding case adjourned until Oct 16 after party submits seven-year financial record

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) finally opened its account books to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday in the foreign funding case.

A five-member bench, headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (retd) Sardar Mohammad Raza, adjourned the hearing until October 16 after the party submitted sealed records which it claims has all funding details.



The PTI submitted financial records for seven years on the orders of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) where it had filed a petition for obtain a stay against the ECP scrutiny of its accounts and repeated orders of the electoral watchdog to produce the financial records.

While submitting sealed documents, the PTI lawyer contended that they should not be shared with the petitioner, Akbar S Babar, who filed the case in November 2014.

The CEC remarked that the documents once submitted were public record. However, he instructed the ECP’s director general, finance, to open the sealed papers in the presence of a PTI representative and scrutinise the documents.



Responding to a query from the CEC, the PTI lawyer acceded that the documents submitted before the panel were the same the party had already submitted before the Supreme Court.

The petitioner’s counsel contended that the documents submitted before the Supreme Court were in the public domain. The CEC remarked that under a high court decision such documents should be in public domain.

The PTI lawyer insisted that the hearing should be adjourned until after October 10 – the date for the IHC hearing of the PTI’s petition for stay against scrutiny of its accounts by the ECP.

During the hearing, the CEC admonished the PTI lawyer for seeking a receipt for the documents. “We are not middlemen,” he said, as he adjourned the hearing until October 16.