ISLAMABAD: Although, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is ‘satisfied’ with the proceedings of Scrutiny Committee probing the all important Foreign Funding case related to three major political parties of Pakistan, the commission has not given any deadline to the committee to complete its probe following the expiry of a previous deadline.
This implies that the committee now has ‘indefinite’ time at its disposal to complete its probe.
On October 23, 2020, the ECP expressed ‘satisfaction’ over the Scrutiny Committee’s progress report into Foreign Funding case related to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), 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.
On August 27, 2020, the Scrutiny Committee had earlier submitted its report to the ECP but the commission had rejected this report, termed it incomplete and directed the committee to refurnish the report latest by October 22, 2020.
After the ECP rejected its report, the committee started re-examining the evidence provided by PTI, PML-N and PPP, it is learnt.
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 could not furnish its report within the given timeline. On October 1, 2019, the ECP reserved verdict on four pleas by the PTI which requested the commission to maintain ‘secrecy’ in the scrutiny of funding’ details of the party in the case on the grounds that ‘false’ news was being leaked about the PTI funds, which, the ruling party said, was an attempt to malign it. On October 10, 2019, the ECP announced the reserved verdict and rejected the PTI pleas.
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 also commenced proceedings of Foreign Funding Case related to the PML-N and the PPP from November 26. The 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 Shahbaz Khosa.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020