Financial irregularities: Imran Khan challenges ECP’s jurisdiction

Questions if the commission can hear plea regarding misuse of party funds

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan questioned on Monday the jurisdiction of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to hear the petition regarding misuse of party funds.

A PTI founding member and former central information secretary Akbar S Babar had filed petition with the ECP, alleging financial corruption and violation of laws in handling the PTI funds.

PTI counsel Shoaib Shaheen at the onset of the proceedings questioned the powers of the commission to hear the case. He asserted that first the ECP should decide if it has jurisdiction to adjudge the case.

The commission, headed by Justice (retd) Sardar Raza, insisted that he respond to the charge of party funds’ misuse.

PTI counsel said the allegations levelled by Babar were mala fide. He said the former PTI leader had been charge-sheeted and finally expelled from the party in 2011 and this was the only reason for the petition filed with the commission.

Babar had filed his petition in November last year and kept pursuing it till the ECP has now taken up the case. Babar in his petition demanded investigation into “financial malpractices in the party” and seeking accountability for those responsible for such practices.

The CEC ordered the PTI to submit in writing their reservations in advance of the next hearing date of March 3.

While talking to the media outside the ECP, Babar blasted the PTI for using delaying tactics. He said that on the one hand the PTI criticises the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) for seeking stays from high courts to delay the proceedings of the Election Tribunal and yet it is employing the same tactics to delay the proceedings of the trial against the PTI.

If the PTI, he argued, has nothing to hide, instead of using delaying tactics, it should voluntarily offer the election commission to order investigations into the PTI accounts.

Babar said that while the PTI claims to have expelled him in public, privately its representative Sardar Azhar Tariq Khan, PTI central financial secretary, immediately after the hearing offered to settle the matter through a Jirga.

Babar, who was once a close confidant of Imran, also alleged that illegal foreign funds have been received in the PTI accounts to the tune of millions of dollars. The evidence in this regard is also part of the petition filed on November 14 last year, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2015.