ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) directed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to file a reply on the Election Commission of Pakistan’s comments on the foreign funding case.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Babar Sattar on Monday heard the Intra-Court Appeal (ICA) of the PTI, filed through the party’s General Secretary Asad Umar, against the IHC single bench’s verdict, wherein, it directed the ECP to decide the foreign funding case within 30 days.

The IHC single bench of Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani in its judgment had upheld the ECP’s decision to give access to the case’s record to the PTI’s founding member Akbar S Babar and not to remove him from the proceedings.

During the hearing, the ECP submitted its comments. The court, therefore, asked the PTI lawyer, Shah Khawar, to give arguments on the ECP’s reply on the next date (June 14).

The division bench, in the last hearing, had suspended the operation of the direction given by Justice Kayani to the ECO to conclude the pending matter within 30 days. It ordered the ECP that all the political parties should be provided a level-playing field and that no political party should have any complaint against the ECP proceedings.

The PTI’s ICA stated that the party is aggrieved by the IHC’s judgment dated 01.04.2022, whereby, the writ petition filed by the petitioner, challenging the ECP order dated 15.03.2022, was dismissed and it had also rejected two applications of the PTI dated 25.01.2022 and 31.01.2022 challenging the ECP’s decision of rejecting the party’s plea to disassociate petitioner Akbar S Babar from the foreign funding case and the application of PTI asking the ECP of not providing Babar with the party’s response on the scrutiny committee report.

The petitioner told the court that the PTI filed an application dated 31.01.2022, praying therein that no document and the reply filed by the PTI before the respondent no1 (ECP) should be made public as the proceedings were administrative in nature.

He added that in the same manner, the appellant filed an application dated 25.01.2022, before the ECP praying therein that the complaint made by the respondent no 2 (Akbar S Babar) be dismissed as no proof has been provided and the report submitted by the Scrutiny Committee of the ECP may be heard without the presence of Respondent No2, Akbar Sher Babar.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022