PTI counsel struggles to provide money trail in foreign funding case

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf counsel on Wednesday came under fire in the Supreme Court for ‘inadequate’ arguments to justify the party’s source for acquiring funds amounting to millions of dollars from the US between 2010 and 2013.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court – while referring to the April 20 decision of the top court in the Panamagate case whereby a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) was formed to probe offshore business of the Sharif family – remarked that the foreign funding matter could similarly be referred to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to determine whether the funds were acquired through prohibited sources.

The bench, headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, is hearing a plea from Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi, seeking disqualification of PTI chief Imran Khan for “giving false declaration that the party did not receive funds from a prohibited source”.

Earlier, PML-N counsel Akram Sheikh argued that between 2010 and 2013, the PTI had received $2.3 million through foreign funding.

“This is prohibited under the Political Parties Order 2002 and Article 17 of the Constitution,” Sheikh argued, submitting a list of all contributors before the bench, many of which were foreign nationals.

In response to the petitioner’s allegations, PTI counsel Anwar Mansoor Khan, while calling the foreign funding an ‘issue of the past’ and a ‘closed transaction’, insisted that the matter could not be reopened.

“The Election Commission of Pakistan did not object to the party’s audit report and allotted the election symbol,” he argued before the bench.

To this, Justice Umar Ata Bandial questioned if a political party could disown its past, adding whether the same argument should also be applied to the national exchequer.

Foreign funding case: Imran cannot be disqualified without determining funding source, says SC

The honourable judge went on to observe if it would not be a mockery that on one side the PTI objected to the ECP jurisdiction and on the other it maintained that it was an error on the part of the chartered accountant.

Meanwhile, the PTI counsel stated that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had also appointed a foreign agent to gather foreign funds. “Even Pakistani embassy collected funds for the PPP during the previous regime,” he argued.

The counsel, while admitting that foreign nationals contributed to the party, stated that there was a difference between foreign funding and contribution. “Contribution is unconditional and aid is conditional.”

He stated that the maximum penalty over foreign funding is that these could only be confiscated, adding that maximum $5,000 had been collected from foreign nationals.

The counsel questioned whether receiving ‘contribution’ or donation from abroad makes the PTI a “Foreign Aid Political Party under Political Parties Order 2002”.

However, the bench observed that they were not satisfied with his contentions on the foreign fund issue, adding that any portion of the fund collected from prohibited sources would be illegal.

PML-N leaders

The bench expressed indignation over PML-N leaders’ criticism wherein they implied that the apex court was discriminating against the ruling party.

At the start of hearing, the bench called ruling party’s leaders Daniyal Aziz and Hanif Abbasi along with their counsel Akram Sheikh at the rostrum and asked them to explain how the judiciary was being discriminatory in the case.

The CJP asked both PML-N leaders to “not humiliate the institutions”. He further said that political leaders should empower the institutions, adding that they have already shown extra restraint.

Giving a ‘last warning’, Justice Nisar observed that if the PML-N leaders continued to give such statements in the future, the court would completely ban their media talks regarding the case proceedings.

Source: The Express Tribune