The Islamabad High Court has partially allowed the PTI’s intra-court appeal challenging an earlier order that directed the Election Commission of Pakistan to decide the PTI’s prohibited funding case within 30 days.
A two-member bench, comprising Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Babar Sattar, stated in the judgement which was released today that “we partially allow the appeal by setting aside the judgment, dated 01-04-2022, to the extent of the direction ‘to decide the pending complaint within period of thirty days’.”
The judgement further stated that the ECP was expected to “complete the pending proceedings against other political parties within a reasonable time and in a fair, just and transparent manner”.
In the earlier ruling, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani had dismissed PTI’s petition seeking to keep the party’s alleged foreign funding confidential, terming it “non-maintainable” and “misconceived”.
He had also rejected the PTI’s request to prevent access to the case’s record to PTI founding member Akbar S Babar and a request to remove him from the case proceedings.
The PTI had filed petitions on January 25 and 31 regarding the above two requests that were subsequently rejected by the ECP on March 15. The party had then filed a petition challenging the ECP’s decision to dismiss the pleas.
Subsequently, the PTI had filed an intra-court appeal in April challenging the IHC’s decision.
In the judgement, the two-member bench observed that the PTI had raised objections against Babar’s participation in the ECP proceedings and the manner in which the case had been dealt with.
The election commission was a constitutional body and was empowered to regulate its own proceedings, the bench observed.
