The high court Wednesday rejected the appeal of preventing Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from hearing foreign funding case against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). The plea was declared non-maintainable by the court.
As per the court, the foreign funding case against the party was being heard by another bench, which is scheduled to announce a decision on September 5. Due to that, the court said, a similar case regarding the issue was not required.
Earlier, Islamabad High Court (IHC) reserved its judgement on the maintainability of the petition regarding foreign funding against PTI.
Akbar S Babar, in 2014, filed a petition seeking disqualification of PTI chief Imran Khan for allegedly taking funds from illegal sources as well as discrepancies in the party’s accounts.
Moreover, Babar had claimed that funds worth US$3million were collected by PTI’s chief through illegal channels from the Middle East to accounts of PTI members.
Earlier, PTI had challenged ECP’s jurisdiction in the case; however, Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Sardar Raza Khan rejected the party’s petition. He did that by challenging its authority, ruling that ECP has the jurisdiction to continue with the case.
It is crucial to mention here that the ECP was hearing two separate cases related to PTI’s ‘foreign funding’. In the Supreme Court, a case is being heard on the petition of PML-N’s Hanif Abbasi.
