- 15 days to submit report to Scrutiny Committee
- Polling for three National Assembly seats will be held on May 28.
- The Election Commission will hear the irregularities in the Sindh by-elections on May 15.
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has tasked its scrutiny committee to submit a report on prohibited funding of all political parties within two weeks.
This decision was taken in a meeting of concerned officers under the chairmanship of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja.
The Scrutiny Committee – initially set up in 2019 to investigate prohibited funding of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – was later set up against other political parties, particularly the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan. A similar investigation was also assigned. People’s Party (PPP).
gave ECP The committee was formed after multiple hearings in the PTI foreign funding case filed by party founder member and former information secretary Akbar S Babar.
Based on the committee’s findings, the commission had said in an order issued on August 2 last year that the PTI had received funds from prohibited sources.
Babar had alleged serious financial irregularities in the accounts of the then ruling party, including illegal sources of funding, concealment of domestic and foreign bank accounts, money laundering and unauthorized access to private bank accounts of party employees. It included using it to legally receive donations. Middle East.
The PTI has since denied any wrongdoing.
Instead, the party retaliated by taking the Election Commission to probe its record of funding the Muslim League (N), People’s Party and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F). I was accused of irregularities and kickbacks.
PTI leaders criticized the election body for not speeding up the scrutiny of other political parties and only targeting them.
Also, during the meeting, the commission decided that the polling for three National Assembly seats NA 108 Faisalabad, NA 118 Nankana Sahib and NA 239 Korangi will be held on May 28.
It also discussed the letters and complaints of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) regarding the local elections in Sindh and the irregularities in the May 7 by-elections in Union Council (UC)-119 Hyderabad.
The ECP fixed May 15 as the date for the hearing of the case and sought reports from the Provincial Election Commissioner, Returning Officer (RO), District Returning Officer (DRO) and District Police Officer (DPO) within three days. Done.
Notices have also been issued to the candidates, RO, DRO, concerned staff and DPO to appear before the Commission on May 15.