ISLAMABAD: The chief election commissioner (CEC) lashed out at Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) when the party’s senior lawyer Anwar Mansoor and finance secretary failed to appear for a hearing in the party’s source of funds on Tuesday.
The bench expressed anger at PTI junior lawyer’s request that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) hear the party’s arguments ‘calmly’, saying that the party had been employing delaying tactics regarding the matter for over three years. “You are telling us to listen to you calmly when the case is being delayed due to your party’s constant failure to appear before the bench,” the CEC said.
Petitioner Akbar S Babar, one of the founding members of PTI, complained to the ECP bench that whenever the body demands an answer from the PTI, the party fails to respond. He blamed the party for delaying the case for more than three years.
The bench regretted that both parties kept bringing up political issues during the hearings instead of presenting legal arguments.
The case was filed on Nov 14, 2014, by Babar after he developed differences with PTI chief Imran Khan over alleged internal corruption and abuse of laws governing political funding. The petitioner has 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 ‘hundi’ 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.
Published in Daily Times, December 13th 2017.
