After the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) verdict was announced yesterday in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) foreign funding case, the coalition government has reportedly decided to put the names of PTI Chairman Imran Khan and other PTI leaders on the no-fly list to prevent them from leaving the country. The government has also decided to move the Supreme Court (SC) to hear the reference it is going to file in the wake of the ECP verdict.
The government will put the names of former premier Imran Khan, ex-governors of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Sindh and former chairman of the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) Zulqarnain Ali Khan on the no-fly list, reports The Express Tribune.
The government will also request Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial to constitute a full court to hear the case, which is yet to be filed, reports Geo News.
All the government allies were unanimously on board for taking strict legal action in light of the ECP’s verdict.
PTI to move IHC
“The PTI will file two different petitions — one contempt of court petition against ECP for violating the Supreme Court and high court’s decisions for not giving verdict against PPP and PML-N together with PTI, whereas the second petition would be filed against the ECP’s decision for having too many loopholes in the verdict,” announced Asad Umar yesterday.
“People trust Imran Khan and that’s why they sent their money to him when he started the fundraising events. If you block political donations, the only other way is that of powerful people,” he added.
Just after the decision was announced, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry said that most of the money was donated by overseas Pakistanis.
He said that he could not understand why the PML-N, JUI-F and PPP declared overseas Pakistanis as an “enemy”.
“We consider overseas Pakistanis to be the backbone of Pakistan’s economy and will continue to rely on them for our funding,” said Fawad. About the certificates that were submitted to the ECP by Khan, Fawad said that these certificates were made by the auditors and Khan had just signed them so the responsibility cannot be put on Imran.
The former premier had personally issued certificates to the ECP in regards to Article 13(2) of the PPO to the effect that PTI “does not receive funds from prohibited sources”, meaning thereby that the PTI is not a foreign-aided political party.
On Tuesday, the ECP said that PTI received ‘prohibited funds’ from 34 foreign nationals. The PTI was issued a show-cause notice after the unanimous verdict by a three-member bench of the ECP headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja.
