Five
years on, PTI’s foreign funding scrutiny still not started
ISLAMABAD: Five years
ago on this day, a founding member of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Akbar S.
Babar had filed a petition before the Election Commission of Pakistan and
submitted evidences of alleged illegal funding, money laundering and corruption
demanding the PTI leadership be held to account for gross violations of the
laws governing political financing.
A lot has changed on the
accountability front with oppositions leaders sent to jail through speedy
justice, however, the foreign funding case against the PTI remains inconclusive
with the PTI tried to stop its scrutiny by filing as many as seven petitions
before the Islamabad High Court and more than a dozen times objections raised
against the ECP regarding jurisdictions. Taking the ECP word as guide, “this
case being the worst historical example of abuse of the process of law” and
accused PTI of delaying the scrutiny process “one way or the other.”
In one petition, it was
stated on behalf of party chairman Imran Khan that he was not answerable to
ordinary citizens of Pakistan for scrutiny of accounts. As of to-date, the PTI
has refused to comply with over 24 written ECP orders demanding production of
documents including PTI bank statements of accounts maintained in Pakistan and
abroad which according to State Bank of Pakistan record submitted to the ECP
are 23 as against the eight accounts declared before the Commission.
This is in contrast with
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s “no NRO” mantra which appears to have confined to
the political opponents as the PTI has not only tried to disrupt the scrutiny
process on different excuses, it demanded in-camera proceeding of the case
where even the complainant should be barred from attending. The News tried to
speak with the PTI secretary general for comments but he neither attended the
call nor returned the message.
In the beginning, Akbar
S. Babar, the complainant received threats of dire consequences. In a letter he
wrote to the interior secretary on November 21, 2014, he claimed to have been
threatened of attacks and quoted a PTI affiliate saying “some criminal elements
can resort to any measure including grievous physical harm in case I persist
with the accountability drive.” Akbar mentioned the name of the PTI affiliate
who conveyed this message in the presence of three other individuals. All were
named and their phone numbers also enlisted.
As for the case is
concerned, the ECP took up the matter six months after it was filed and passed
an order wherein it was explicitly stated that details and sources of funds
were missing from the annual audit reports. There came the first challenge from
the PTI which questioned ECP jurisdiction of the scrutiny of funds and it was
rejected by the Commission.
The PTI then moved the
IHC challenging ECP jurisdiction and locus standi of Akbar S. Babar on the
grounds that the petitioner was expelled from the party thus he was no member
PTI member. The claim was contested by the petitioner who proved through
documents his party membership was intact.
However, it took one and
half years for the IHC to decide the petition rejecting PTI’s plea and remanded
it back to the ECP acknowledging its jurisdiction of holding a political party
to account on the question of irregularities and illegalities in funding.
Instead of submitting
itself for accountability, the PTI started questioning the maintainability of
the case and ECP powers to summon the record. In one petition, the party
demanded its scrutiny be held in-camera.
The setting up of
scrutiny committee was delayed through litigation on frivolous grounds for
three and half years. The committee was set up only in March 2018 under the
leadership of DG Law of the ECP. Two auditors (DG Audit Defense Services and
Controller Accounts Pakistan Air Force) were also made part of this committee.
As the scrutiny
committee demanded financial documents and held two dozen meetings on this
issue conveying written directives, the PTI was nevertheless reluctant to do
so. Finally, the committee wrote to State Bank of Pakistan on July 3, 2018 for
the production of financial record for the period of 2009-13. The SBP complied
with directives and wrote letters to all scheduled banks demanding statements
of bank accounts maintained by the PTI. It was revealed that the PTI had 23
bank accounts as against a total of eight declared before the ECP.
Now as the ECP is in
receipt of account details, scrutiny process still faces delay. Yet another
petition from the PTI seeking the suspension of scrutiny process was heard by
the IHC on November 11. The petition had sought to set aside the ECP order of
October 10, 2019 rejecting four PTI applications seeking secrecy of scrutiny
and excluding the petitioner and PTI founding member Akbar S. Babar from the
case. It had also sought to restrain the ECP scrutiny committee from conducting
scrutiny of PTI accounts that commenced in March 2018.
The PTI had sought an urgent
hearing of its latest writ petition as the next meeting of the scrutiny
committee was scheduled for November 12, the first such meeting after PTI
walked out and boycotted the October 23 meeting. While hearing the case,
Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani asked the PTI lawyer for record of earlier PTI
writ petitions filed before the IHC under the same foreign funding case. Upon
PTI lawyer’s ignorance of the matter, the judge ordered the lawyer to complete
the record of all previous writ petitions including the PTI Intra Court Appeal
before the double bench of the IHC headed by Chief Justice Justice Athar
Minallah before proceeding further. This intra court appeal is scheduled to be
heard on November 26, 2019 on similar grounds of seeking secrecy of scrutiny and
removing the petitioner Akbar S. Babar from the scrutiny process.
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