Farooq Naeem—AFP
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday directed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to decide the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s foreign funding case within 30 days and dismissed a petition of the party seeking secrecy for its documents.
In his ruling on applications filed by the PTI to keep its documents secret—after the ECP had earlier rejected its request for confidentiality—and bar petitioner Akbar S. Babar from pursuing the case, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani said that the ECP’s role cannot be curtailed in any manner. It said that the electoral body is a “supervisory, regulatory and administrative body under the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973 to deal with the affairs of political parties, election and its results.”
In line with its activities, read the judgment, “no restriction could be imposed upon ECP to adopt any process of inquiry, investigation, scrutiny to reach out the mandate of assigned duty in terms of Article 17(3).” It further noted that if it were proven that any party funding had been received through prohibited sources, it would impact not only the party, but also its chairman, “therefore, it is necessary to dig out the truth, even petitioner being political party is also under obligation to maintain its dignity and integrity, which has far reaching effect in Pakistani society and if any foreign funding has been received contrary to law and mandate of the Constitution, the petitioner has to face the music.”
The order stressed that the ECP had been not “restricted” from adopting “any method [required] to reach out the truth.” It also noted that the PTI’s demand for Babar to be separated from the case was not maintainable, as Babar had provided information to both the ECP and its scrutiny committee, adding that “petitioner PTI and its chairman is primarily aggrieved with the participation of respondent No. 2 in the proceedings while claiming his status being worker/member of political party.”
The foreign funding case has been pending since 2014, when petitioner Babar alleged that the PTI had received funds from dubious foreign sources. After several years without progress, the ECP formed a scrutiny committee in 2019 to audit the foreign funding received by the PTI. A report submitted by the committee in January found that the PTI had hid funds worth millions of rupees from the ECP, which were only discovered on the basis of information provided by the State Bank of Pakistan.
According to the report, the PTI did not disclose funding worth more than Rs. 310 million to the ECP.