Islamabad High Court rejects PTI’s petition against ECP notice in prohibited funding case

ISLAMABAD, Feb 02 (SABAH): The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday dismissed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) petition against the ruling of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) regarding the prohibited funding case.

In August 2022, the Election Commission of Pakistan issued a show-cause notice to the PTI after it concluded that the party received funding from prohibited sources. The notice was later challenged in the IHC.

A larger bench of the IHC — comprising Chief Justice IHC Aamer Farooq and comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Babar Sattar — had reserved its verdict on January 11 after arguments were completed. The verdict was announced verbally. The court issued the short order.

The high court declared that the electoral watchdog was correct in issuing a show cause notice to the PTI and rejected party chief Imran Khan’s petition.

Referring to the ECP order that he adopted legal remedy against, Imran Khan had argued in his petition that the commission had declared his party as foreign-aided and had denied his declaration, claiming that the accounts of political parties were handled by chartered accountants.

The former premier contended that the ECP targeted the PTI and made it a case of “pick and choose”.

IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq had previously remarked that the electoral watchdog’s decision in the prohibited funding case was an ‘observation’ and that if the PTI proved that the funds were not prohibited, the decision would have to be changed.

On August 2, 2022, the ECP, in a unanimous verdict, announced that the PTI received prohibited funding. The case was earlier referred to as the “foreign funding” case, but later the election commission accepted the PTI’s plea to refer to it as the “prohibited funding” case.

The commission found that donations were taken from America, Australia, Canada and the UAE.

The PTI received funds from 34 individuals and 351 businesses including companies, the ECP verdict stated.

Thirteen unknown accounts also came to light, said the commission in the verdict, adding that hiding accounts are a “violation” of Article 17 of the Constitution. The funds were also in violation of Article 6 of the Political Parties Act.

Moreover, the ECP found that Khan submitted a false Nomination Form I and that the affidavit provided regarding party accounts was also not authentic.