ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court approved on Saturday Akbar S. Babar’s request to become party to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) appeal against the verdict of the Election Commission of Pakistan in prohibited funding case.
Early in the August, a three-member bench of the ECP declared that the PTI ‘knowingly and willfully’ received funding from prohibited sources, including foreign nationals.
The ECP bench in its ruling said that funding from Wootton Cricket, owned by Abraaj Group founder Arif Naqvi, was from a prohibited source.
It declared that funding received from over 350 foreign companies and 34 foreign nationals — many of them of Indian origin — was also from prohibited sources. The funds were raised in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
The commission declared the funding received from Romitta Shetty from Singapore also comes under funding from prohibited sources.
A week later, the PTI challenged the verdict in the IHC. The party requested the court to “suspend the operation of the Impugned Fact Finding Report dated 02.08.2022 of the ECP” as they alleged that the report “is perverse, incorrect and in excess of authority and jurisdiction.”
The party also asked to the court to suspend the show cause notice issued by the commission.
In its application, the PTI also prayed to the court to declare that any action suggested by the ECP is beyond authority. It also wants the court to announce that no action can be taken on the basis of the ECP’s fact finding report.
When founding PTI member Babar, who was the original petitioner in the ECP against PTI’s foreign funding case, the PTI opposed it.
Babar in his application filed in the IHC on August 17 had maintained that he is the member of the PTI and the original complainant.
There is no mention of me in the PTI’s petition and has not been named respondent in the case, Babar said.
The IHC on Saturday added Babar as respondent to the case.
The court noted that Babar it would be unjust to exclude him from the proceedings at this stage.
“He has participated in the proceedings all along and he had been impleaded in various rounds of litigation, there is no justification or basis to exclude him at this stage,” the order reads.
