Islamabad HC suspends 30-day deadline order in Imran Khan-led PTI foreign funding case

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday suspended the order which directed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to decide the foreign funding case against former Prime Minister Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) within 30 days.

A two-judge bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) suspended the single-bench ruling in PTI foreign funding case till the next hearing on May 17, reported ARY News.

The foreign funding case is pending since November 14, 2014, and it was filed by PTI founding member Akbar S Babar who had alleged that there are some financial irregularities in the PTI’s funding from Pakistan and abroad.

IHC suspension of the order comes after an appeal filed by the PTI’s secretary-general, Asad Umar, against the order directing ECP to conclude the proceedings in the foreign funding case within 30 days.

Umar, while speaking to the media after filing the intra-court appeal against the IHC decision accused the ECP of being partisan and biased towards the party. He slammed the Election Commission of Pakistan saying that the incumbent commission could not hold free and fair elections in the country.

The IHC rejected a petition filed by the ruling political party to bar the ECP from handing over the records of the PTI foreign funding case to the petitioner Akbar S Babar. Another petition of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for separating Babar from the proceedings of the case was also rejected by the high court, reported the news channel.

Earlier, during the hearing, PTI’s counsel Anwar Mansoor claimed that the documents provided by the Election Commission of Pakistan‘s (ECP) scrutiny committee to petitioner Akbar S. Babar were not bona fide.

He said, “The documents provided by the ECP’s scrutiny committee to petitioner Akbar S. Babar were not bona fide,” adding that the petitioner Babar spoke out of the context on the matter during his interactions with the media. PTI’s counsel said that ECP was not fully functional as it was operating without its two members, who retired in 2019. (ANI)