Prohibited funding case: PTI seeks more time from ECP to submit reply to show-cause notice

ISLAMABAD: Former ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has sought more time from the poll entity to submit reply to the show cause notice in the Prohibited Funding Case - citing “problematic times” and “confiscation of related record by unidentified elements” — following which, the electoral body has given four more weeks to the political party to submit reply.

“We are facing very problematic times — the matter is very serious — unidentified men have been raiding PTI’s offices — arrests are going on — we need more time to submit reply due to confiscation of related record by unidentified elements,” PTI counsel and former attorney general for Pakistan (AGP) Anwar Mansoor Khan told a three-member bench that heard Prohibited Funding Case on Tuesday. The defence lawyer said he is trying to acquire the related record from different sources.

Heading the bench, Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja remarked that the ECP issued its verdict in Prohibited Funding Case in August last year but the defence side did not file reply to show cause notice despite the lapse of several months.

The former AGP responded that they already submitted initial reply but needed more time to submit detailed reply to the show cause notice — keeping in view the challenges the PTI is presently faced with.

The bench granted the defence side four more weeks to submit reply but did not specify any date for the next hearing.

On August 2, last year, the ECP finally announced the much-hyped and long-awaited verdict in the Prohibited Funding Case (formerly known as foreign funding case) — around eight years after the case landed in the electoral body in November 2014 — in what came as a huge sigh of relief for the former ruling party that was not found guilty of being a foreign-aided political party — but the commission issued PTI a show cause notice for explaining its position over receiving prohibited funds.

After the verdict was issued, the commission came under massive criticism from the PTI and public circles over alleged discrepancies in the 70-page written order on Prohibited Funding Case.

Scores of overseas Pakistanis appeared on electronic and social media to lambaste the electoral body for naming them as foreign donors, who, according to ECP, sent illegal donations to PTI—in Prohibited Funding Case verdict.

The ECP’s order also contained details of funds received by the PTI from some 34 foreign nationals and 351 foreign-based companies but the funding record provided by ECP in the verdict was strongly disputed by the overseas Pakistanis with several companies that were shown as foreign donor entities were found to be belonging to overseas Pakistanis.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023