Daily Times

On Monday, the Islamabad High Court stopped the Election Commission of Pakistan from announcing a verdict against PTI foreign funding case within 30 days.

IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah said: “The ECP is a constitutional institution so the court suspends its earlier order that the commission should announce its verdict within 30 days.”

The directive was issued by IHC’s division bench, comprising IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Babar Sattar, in response to PTI’s intra-court appeal challenging a single bench’s order.

IHC Chief Justice Minallah heard the PTI petition against the biased attitude of the Election Commission of Pakistan in the foreign funding case against the party. The petition beseeched the court to direct the ECP to hear cases against 17 political parties on daily basis and decide these cases within a month.

The ECP and 17 political parties including PML-N, PPP, MQM-P, JUI-F, AML, TLP, BAP, BNP and ANP were made respondents in the case.

Earlier on Wednesday, PTI filed an intra-court appeal in the Islamabad High Court challenging the IHC’s single-bench decision to announce verdict on foreign funding case within 30 days.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had already announced that it would hear the PTI foreign funding case every day, so that it could be able to decide the case within 30 days as per the IHC’s directives.

On April 14, an IHC single-judge bench headed by Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani upheld the ECP’s decision to give access to the case’s record to the PTI’s founding member Akbar S Babar and not remove him from the proceedings.

On the other hand, PTI has decided to hold protests outside the offices of the Election Commission of Pakistan throughout the country on Tuesday (tomorrow) against the chief election commissioner for his alleged biased behaviour. The party is demanding resignation of CEC Sikander Sultan Raja.

However, in the backdrop of looming protests, the ECP has decided to write a letter to the home secretary to ensure the security of its offices against the PTI’s protests scheduled to be held tomorrow.