ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has enabled the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to proceed against the PTI in the foreign funding case as it dismissed the party’s petition challenging the commission’s jurisdiction to hear such matters.

The foreign funding case has been pending in the ECP since November 2014.

The PTI took the plea before the ECP that the complainant, a disgruntled member of the PTI, could not file such a petition in his individual capacity. But the commission on May 8, 2017, held that it had jurisdiction to entertain the complaint and that the PTI founding member Akbar S. Babar had all the legal right to file the case. However, the PTI challenged the judgment in the IHC.

When the case came up for hearing before Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani of the IHC last week, the PTI counsel argued that the foreign funding case was based on a mala fide intent.

The judge remarked that all his objections challenging the ECP jurisdiction had been addressed in a Supreme Court judgment. While reserving the judgment on Jan 26, the judge remarked: “We have given you enough time to argue.”

The PTI first challenged the ECP jurisdiction over the foreign funding case in November 2015 after the commission in its verdict on Oct 8, 2015, expressed its complete authority to scrutinise the party’s accounts. On February 17, 2017, the IHC remanded the case back to the ECP to rehear its jurisdiction and locus standi (right of audience) of the petitioner to file the case.

On May 8, 2017, the ECP passed a detailed judgment reasserting its jurisdiction and stating that the petitioner was still a member of the PTI and hence had all the legal right to file the case.

Once again, the PTI challenged the ECP order in the IHC seeking its injunction to stop the proceedings in the ECP.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2018