PTI to file judicial reference against Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja

ISLAMABAD: PTI on Saturday decided to file a judicial reference against Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, sources informed Geo News. 

The decision came after a high-level meeting, chaired by party chief Imran Khan, was held.

During the meeting, Khan directed PTI’s legal experts to start preparing a reference against Raja, after the leaders reviewed the coalition government’s recent meeting held with the CEC and other members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

Following repeated demands calling for the CEC’s resignation, Khan and his party leaders have also asked for the ECP to be reconstituted before the next general elections.

Sources state that participants at the meeting discussed ECP’s role with regard to PTI’s foreign funding case. The party has also decided that provincial governments would also take action against the election commission, and that two provincial assemblies — in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — would pass no-trust motions against the ECP.

The high-level meeting took place following the criticism received by Khan and the PTI due to a Financial Times report, which revealed how businessman Arif Naqvi's Cayman Island company, Wootton Cricket Ltd, dispensed funds — of foreign origin — to Khan’s party.

The party has denied claims to have received foreign funds. Instead, it stated that the funds donated to PTI by Overseas Pakistanis. The government, however, is persistently demanding the ECP to announce the verdict in the PTI's foreign funding case — which was filed in 2014 – at the earliest.

Meanwhile, a delegation of representatives of the ruling coalition on Friday met the chief election commissioner and four members of the ECP — just hours after the FT report was published.

The delegation urged ECP’s officials to announce the PTI foreign funding case verdict early, adding that it was the people’s right to know from whose agents the party had been taking money for politics.