Election Commission hears Babar's plea in Foreign Funding case

ISLAMABAD: The election commission on Tuesday adjourned hearing of Akbar S. Babar’s plea for provision of case documents in the foreign funding case, ARY News reported.

Babar’s lawyer Ahmad Hassan appeared before the election commission bench and said that the foreign funding scrutiny committee not providing documents on his petitioner’s application in the case due to objection by a party.

“The details of the PTI’s foreign accounts if submitted in the commission, should be provided to the petitioner,” counsel Ahmad Hassan said.

Petitioner Akbar S. Babar’s counsel also objected over the manner in which the scrutiny being conducted and argued for open proceedings of the scrutiny committee.

“It is our legal right to get access to the record produced to the scrutiny committee,” he said.

“The PTI record, which is submitted as an evidence, being kept secret and the scrutiny committee, was not prepared to give us a paper from it,” the lawyer said.

“It seems scrutiny proceeding is a show off. All papers should be provided to us if there is transparency in proceedings,” counsel said.

“A political party’s all data should be available for public,” counsel Ahmad Hassan said. “We have even assured that the material will not be misused, but the PTI has refused to give record of even one year.”

“If the scrutiny committee has itself collected any record,” election commission member Irshad Qaiser asked. “It has gathered some record but we are not being informed,” Babar’s lawyer replied.

The commission adjourned further hearing of the case until March 22.