The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will announce the verdict in the Toshakhana disqualification reference filed against former prime minister Imran Khan on Friday (tomorrow) at 2pm.
\nAccording to a notice issued today, ECP ordered all the relevant parties or their counsels to appear before the electoral watchdog at its secretariat in Islamabad.
\nThe ECP had reserved its verdict in the case on September 19.
\nThe reference was filed against the PTI chairman by the coalition government, for \u201cnot sharing details\u201d of Toshakhana gifts and proceeds from their alleged sale.
\nEstablished in 1974, the Tosha\u00adkhana is a department under the administrative control of the Cabinet Division and stores precious gifts given to rulers, parliamentarians, bureaucrats, and officials by heads of other governments and states and foreign dignitaries.
\nAccording to Toshakhana rules, gifts\/presents and other such materials received by persons to whom these rules apply shall be reported to the Cabinet Division.
\nHowever, the PTI, while in government, had been reluctant to disclose details of the gifts presented to Imran Khan since he assumed office in 2018, maintaining that doing so would jeopardise international ties, even as the Pakistan Infor\u00admation Commission (PIC) ordered it to do so.
\nOn August 4, lawmakers from the Pakistan Democratic Movement \u2014 which is part of the ruling alliance \u2014 filed a reference for the PTI chief\u2019s disqualification from public office under articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution over his hesitance to share the details of Toshakhana gifts.
\nThey submitted the reference to the National Assembly speaker who subsequently forwarded it to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikander Sultan Raja for further action.
\nIn its hearing on Aug 29, the ECP had sought a written reply from Imran by Sep 8. In his reply, the PTI chief had admitted to having sold at least four presents he had received during his tenure as the prime minister of Pakistan.
\nThe former premier, in his reply, maintained that the sale of the gifts that he had procured from the state treasury after paying Rs21.56 million fetched about Rs58m. One of the gifts included a graff wristwatch, a pair of cuff links, an expensive pen and a ring while the other three gifts included four Rolex watches.
\nThe reference
\nThe reference against Imran was filed by MNA Barrister Mohsin Nawaz Ranjha carrying signatures of lawmakers Agha Hassan Baloch, Salahudeen Ayubi, Ali Gohar Khan, Syed Rafiullah Agha and Saad Waseem Sheikh and it was subsequently forwarded to CEC Raja.
\nThe ruling PML-N is confident Imran is going to be disqualified in the reference as they say he has not declared in his assets the amount he received from the alleged sale of state gifts.
\nIn their disqualification reference, MNAs from the ruling alliance included documentary evidence to corroborate their claims against the ex-premier and sought his disqualification under Sections 2 and 3 of Article 63 of the Constitution, read with Article 62(1)(f).
\nArticle 62(1)(f) says: \u201cA person shall not be qualified to be elected or chosen as a member of Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) unless [\u2026] he is sagacious, righteous and non-profligate, honest and ameen, there being no declaration to the contrary by a court of law.\u201d
\nArticle 63(2) says: \u201cIf any question arises whether a member of Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) has become disqualified from being a member, the Speaker or, as the case may be, the Chairman shall, unless he decides that no such question has arisen, refer the question to the Election Commission within thirty days and should he fail to do so within the aforesaid period it shall be deemed to have been referred to the Election Commission.\u201d
\nWhile, Article 63(3) reads: \u201cThe Election Commission shall decide the question within ninety days from its receipt or deemed to have been received and if it is of the opinion that the member has become disqualified, he shall cease to be a member and his seat shall become vacant.\u201d
\nThe Toshakhana caseLast year, the PIC had accepted an application by Islamabad-based journalist Rana Abrar Khalid and directed the Cabinet Division to \u201cprovide the requested information about the gifts received by Prime Minister Imran Khan from foreign head of states, head of governments and other foreign dignitaries \u2026 description\/specification of each gift, information about the gifts retained by the PM and the Rules under which gifts thus received are retained by him\u201d.
\nThe Cabinet Division was told to share the required information within 10 working days and upload it on the official website as well.
\nSubsequently, the Cabinet Division had challenged the PIC order in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), claiming that it was \u201cillegal, without lawful authority\u201d. The then-government took the stance that the dis\u00adclosure of any information rela\u00adted to Toshakhana jeopardises international ties.
\nIn April this year, the IHC had directed Deputy Attorney General Arshad Kayani to ensure the implementation of the PIC order to publicise details of the gifts presented to former prime minister Imran by heads of states since he assumed office in August 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will announce the verdict in the Toshakhana disqualification reference filed against former prime minister Imran Khan on Friday (tomorrow)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1963,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}