ISLAMABAD – The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesdaycontradicted some statements appearing in sections of the press onintentional delaying the hearing of the foreign funding case. According toECP, these statements are baseless as the scrutiny committee was working onapplications received related to the foreign funding case from PakistanTehreek-e-Insaf, Pakistan Peoples Party, and Pakistan Muslim League (N). Itadded the committee had submitted its report on PTI foreign funding casewith the commission in December 2021 and its regular hearing has been fixedbefore the commission, which is in the final stages.
The commission has sought a report on April 28 from the Chairman Scrutinycommittee on the matter as the April 27-29 date has been fixed for finalarguments of PTI lawyer while the commission has sought necessary recordsfrom PPP, PPPP, and PML-N as the scrutiny committee has fixed May 9 forproceeding on cases of these parties.
The commission made it clear that any delay in hearing or proceeding offoreign funding cases was due to various reasons from these parties. Itadded that the commission has continued the proceeding on the case withoutany discrimination. The commission said that as per a letter received fromthe Ministry of Planning Development and Special Initiatives, the 7thpopulation and housing census is being started on 1st August 2022 and itsresults will be provided to ECP on December 31st, 2022.
It added that in case of a new census, the ECP’s 2017-based delimitationwill become irrelevant and the commission will be bound as per law to startdelimitation from January 1st, 2023. For this purpose, at least four monthsare required for reviewing electoral rolls due to the addition ofstatistical block codes and their limitations.
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The commission will start hearing on declarations sent by the SpeakerNational Assembly to the Chief Election Commissioner on May 14 underArticle 63 (A) against 20 members National Assembly on April 28 while thedate of May 6 has been fixed for hearing on the declarations issued by theSpeaker Punjab Assembly against 26 members Punjab Assembly which werereceived on May 20.
