ECP asks petitioner to submit reply on scrutiny panel’s report

State minister urges electoral watchdog to activate committee to investigate PML-N, PPP accounts

ISLAMABAD:

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has directed Akbar S Babar, petitioner in the PTI foreign funding case, to submit reply on the scrutiny committee’s report within two weeks.

A three-member bench of the electoral watchdog met under the chairmanship of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja.

State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib requested the ECP to activate the scrutiny committee for the investigation of the PML-N and PPP accounts. When asked, Habib told the election supervisor that an application in this regard had been filed but a panel could not be constituted.

The state minister recalled that the election supervisor had issued orders for the formation of a panel to probe the PML-N and PPP accounts.

The CEC replied that the ECP had sought three names from the auditor general’s office after which the committee would be reconstituted.

PTI counsel Anwar Mansoor could not appear before the electoral watchdog due to his commitment at the Supreme Court.

On being pointed out that the date for hearing had been fixed after consultation, the petitioner’s lawyer said that the PTI resorted to delay tactics even in the past.

When asked to submit arguments, Babar’s counsel said that they had received the record late and would require 20 days for preparation from it.

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The CEC pointed out that the ECP had not received replies from the petitioner as well as from the PTI after which the hearing of the case was adjourned till March 1.

Speaking to media after the hearing, Habib called upon PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and PML-N Vice-President Maryam Nawaz to submit details of the “companies they had formed in the United States and United Kingdom”.

“PPP and PML-N try to run away from law, accountability and the ECP,” the state minister said, adding that they wanted the funding cases of all the political parties to be decided.

Last month, a report compiled by the ECP scrutiny committee confirmed that the PTI had received funding from foreign nationals and companies, under-reported funds and concealed dozens of its bank accounts.

The PTI foreign funding case has been pending since November 2014. Since then, the ECP and the scrutiny panel heard the case over 150 times.

The scrutiny committee was formed in March 2018 to completely scrutinise PTI accounts, but it took almost four years to present its report to the ECP, which was submitted in December 2021.