ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Wednesday filed an application in Islamabad High Court (IHC), requesting early hearing of its petition against the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) ruling in prohibited funding case.
The PTI in the application requested the court that it petition should be heard on a daily basis. The petitioner said the federal investigation authority (FIA) has been carrying out operations on the ECP ruling against the party leaders. It stated that though the petition was fixed for hearing, it was de-listed later.
Earlier, the court extended the interim pre-arrest bail of former prime minister and PTI chairman Imran Khan until December 14 in the prohibited funding case.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) registered a case against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief and 10 others over accusations of receiving foreign funding. The case had been registered by the FIA Corporate Banking Circle.
The case’s First Information Report (FIR) stated that the accused including the former premier Imran Khan violated Foreign Exchange Act and all of the nominated persons were beneficiaries of the private bank account.
It is important to mention here that the PTI founding member and former information secretary Akbar S Babar had filed the case in the ECP in November 2014, alleging financial irregularities in PTI’s foreign funding and that it received funds from prohibited sources.
Attack on Islamabad High Court
On February 08, 2021, after the demolition of illegal chambers at District and Sessions Court Complex in Islamabad, furious lawyers stormed the high court building and manhandled police officials, staff and journalists.
A large number of protesting lawyers outside the building had hurled stones while raising slogans against the district administration and the IHC chief justice.
Court doesn’t extends relief to CDA Special Magistrate
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) administration on Wednesday did not extend any relief to the beleaguered senior special magistrate of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and advised him to seek protection from the authority’s own law.
IHC Member Inspection Team (MIT) in response to the formal complaint of CDA’s senior special magistrate Sardar Mohammad Asif, against the hierarchy of the civic agency, advised him to seek protection as provided in the law.
CDA’s magistrate accused senior authorities of the civic agency and the Municipal Corporation Islamabad (MCI) of forcing him to “extort” money and that his court was being treated as “an automated teller machine (ATM)”.
In his complaint to IHC, he stated that his “court is being influenced and interfered unwarrantedly to hoodwink in the due process of law which is repugnant to the principle of natural justice.” He stated in the application that the CDA’s hierarchy was using his office to “mint money”.
“The trial court is being considered an ATM machine, which is causing an unnecessary litigation burden on the district judiciary,” he stated in the complaint. He requested the IHC to protect his office “from undue influence, interference in the larger interest of justice, claiming that he had been acting as a “whistle blower”.
He further said that the CDA might be restrained from taking any adverse action against him.
The IHC administration perused his complaint and referred this matter to Senior Puisne Judge Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani.
Responding to the complaint, the MIT of the IHC, through a letter, stated that the court of the senior special magistrate is an independent judicial forum and its judgement is appealable in the court of sessions/before the competent forum.
