Islamabad - The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday adjourned till March 22 the hearing in a case relating to the alleged foreign funding received by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)

No one from the PTI showed up when the ECP took up the case for hearing.

Later, talking to media persons, Akbar S Babar, the petitioner and party’s founding member and former central information secretary, said that instead of pursuing the case, PTI chief Imran Khan was hurling threats at the ECP.

“This amounts to pressurising and blackmailing a constitutional institution,” he claimed. He said that the PTI chief was demanding justice but himself was running away from justice.

At the previous hearing, the petitioner had requested the ECP to hear the case on a daily basis.

Separately, he has also requested Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to ask the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to thoroughly probe the matter.

The petition was filed in November 2014 by Babar, who has alleged massive violation of relevant laws and corruption in collection and utilisation of party funds.

Babar accuses the PTI chief of embezzling at least $3 million donated to the PTI by overseas Pakistanis.

Meanwhile, the ECP condemned a statement issued by the PTI chief wherein he had hinted at ‘launching a campaign against the ECP for not amending the laws.

A spokesperson for the ECP clarified that legislation was not the mandate of the ECP.

He said that the ECP will never be blackmailed by any ‘vested interest for their ulterior motives’ and will always play on front foot without taking any pressure.

The spokesperson said that legislation was the exclusive mandate of the Parliament. 

He said that the ECP was aware of its constitutional responsibilities for which it was vigilantly striving to perform and deliver as per expectations of the nation and the guidelines given in the Inquiry Commission Report of the Supreme Court on 2013 general elections.

He said that the ECP has also taken concrete steps towards fair, free and transparent elections and such steps taken up to December 2016 have been published in its publication namely “Road to General Election-2018”.

The ECP, he said, has also devised a prudent HR policy, where all those having established roots in a single place of posting/station for years have been uprooted and transferred.

Moreover, the spokesperson said that exhaustive training programmes have been started after the establishment of the Federal Election Academy.

He said that monitoring, gender affairs and political finance wings have been raised to implement the guidelines of the inquiry commission report.