Marriyum says govt to send declaration against PTI to SC in prohibited funding case

Islamabad: The federal government will send a declaration against the PTI to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in light of the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb announced on Thursday.

The Commission had recently ruled that the party had indeed taken prohibited funding.

The PML-N leader said the ECP decision has visibly proved that the PTI is a foreign-aided party.

She was of the view that under the law and Constitution, the government was now bound to send a declaration to the apex court.

Aurangzeb said that the law ministry had been given a time of three days to prepare the declaration and present it in the next federal cabinet meeting.

The government’s decision comes after the electoral body, in its long-delayed verdict, had ruled that PTI had “wilfully” and “knowingly” received prohibited funding — which include a number of foreign donors.

In its order, the commission also said that it was “constrained to hold that Imran Khan failed to discharge his obligations as mandated under the Pakistani statutes”.

In a press conference after the federal cabinet meeting today, Aurangzeb said that action against the PTI will be taken under the Political Parties Order (PPO) 2002 and Election Act 2017.

Aurangzeb said the case was extremely important because it was now proven that the PTI had 16 undeclared accounts, while the party took ownership of only 8 accounts out of 26.

She pointed out that the money kept coming in but it was not declared, adding that the PTI took 51 adjournments during the proceedings of the prohibited funding case over the period of eight years and received funding from 351 foreign companies which she said was a crime under Pakistan’s law.