Foreign Funding Case: Court accepts PTI’s miscellaneous plea

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court has accepted a miscellaneous plea filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to submit further documents in the foreign funding case.

The plea was heard by Justice Mohsin Akhtar where he directed to make the details of pending PTI foreign funding case in Election Commission a part of the judicial record.

Also read: PTI’s four petitions against foreign funding case rejected 

He also directed a notification of Saqlain Haider Awan’s appointment as a law officer aimed to be part of the judicial record.

The PTI has also been granted permission to submit the details of the petition filed in the same court in 2017.

The case was filed on 14th November 2014 by Akbar S. Babar, after he developed differences with the PTI chief over internal corruption and abuse of laws governing political funding.

Also read: ECP reserves verdict on four applications in PTI foreign funding case

The petitioner alleged that nearly $3 million in illegal foreign funds were collected through two offshore companies, registered under Imran Khan’s signature, and that money was sent through illegal channels from the Middle East to accounts of PTI employees.

He also alleged that the foreign accounts used to collect funds were concealed from the annual audit reports submitted to the ECP.

On 1st April 2015, after scrutinising PTI’s annual audit reports, the ECP ordered that the party had failed to disclose the sources and details of foreign funds received.

Read more: PTI’s four petitions against foreign funding case rejected 

But instead of submitting the accounts, the PTI challenged the ECP’s jurisdiction to scrutinise its accounts. On 8th October 2015, a five-member bench of the ECP passed a detailed order saying that only the ECP was the right constitutional forum to scrutinise accounts of political parties.

On 26th November 2015, the PTI challenged the ECP order before the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which finally remanded the case back to the ECP on 15th February 2017.

Also read: PM Imran to chair consultative meeting over anti-govt march today

The last PTI summoned petition in the IHC challenging formation of the ECP scrutiny committee to audit PTI foreign funding and the party’s membership of Babar was dismissed by a single IHC bench on 24th July 2019.