Foreign funding case: ECP directs scrutiny committee to refurnish its report

ISLAMABAD: Sixteen months after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) directed the scrutiny committee, which heard the Foreign Funding case, to refurnish its report into the case that is pending for over seven years, the electoral body is finally set to review the said report that was submitted to the commission last month, after missing the previous deadlines.

In this context, the ECP will hold a meeting on December 27 to review the panel’s report into Foreign Funding case related to three major political parties - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), it is learnt.

On August 27 last year, the Scrutiny Committee submitted its report into Foreign Finding case to the ECP but the commission rejected this report, termed it incomplete and directed the committee to refurnish the report latest by October 22, 2020, but the committee failed to meet this deadline.

On October 23 last year, the ECP expressed ‘satisfaction’ over the Scrutiny Committee’s progress into Foreign Funding case and allowed the panel to go ahead with the probe and complete the final report as ‘early as possible’ but did not specify any timeframe in this regard. This implied that the committee had ‘indefinite’ time at its disposal to complete its probe. Last month, the committee finally completed its probe and submitted the report to the ECP. The commission is mandated to initiate action keeping in view the findings of the report.

In November 2014, Akbar Sher Babar, one of the founding members of PTI, moved the ECP accusing the PTI of being a foreign funded party and seeking action against it in accordance with related constitutional provisions. In March 2018, the ECP formed the Scrutiny Committee to scrutinize the funds of PTI and to submit its report in a month but the committee failed to furnish its report within the given timeline.

The ECP on November 21, 2019, decided to accept the request of opposition parties to conduct on daily basis the hearing of the Foreign Funding case related to the PTI and fixed November 26 as the date to commence proceedings of the case, after a gap of 20 months.

Before the November 26 hearing, the ECP last held the regular hearing of Foreign Funding case in March 2018 when the Scrutiny Committee was formed to scrutinize the PTI funds. The PTI also requested the ECP that the Foreign Funding case related to the PML-N and the PPP should also be heard by the ECP.

The ECP accepted this demand and commenced, besides PTI, the proceedings of Foreign Funding case related to the PML-N and the PPP from November 26.

The three-member Scrutiny Committee is headed by ECP’s Director General (Law) Muhammad Arshad as its Chairman and includes DG (Audit) Defence Services Masood Akhtar Sherwani, and Controller Accounts Air Force Muhammad Faheem as its members.

Shah Khawar is PTI’s counsel in the case whereas Ahmad Hassan represents Akbar Babar. The PML-N is represented by Jahangir Jadoon and the PPP is represented by Shehbaz Khosa.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021