PTI\u2019s legal team has challenged the Federal Investigation Agency\u2019s (FIA) summons to the party chairman Imran Khan in Lahore High Court (LHC), seeking a clean chit in the case which, it termed was part of the government’s political witch hunt.
\nKhan’s party in its petition disputed the FIA\u2019s notice for Khan’s appearance before the agency on November 7 and made the Ministry of Interior, DG FIA, Deputy Director FIA, and the investigation officer party in the petition.
\nThe petition said FIA sent the notice with the intent of political victimisation on October 31.
\n\u201cThe FIA\u2019s inquiry regarding PTI Punjab\u2019s bank account is based on bad faith. The probe was initiated to harass the former prime minister,\u201d the petition said.
\nThe inquiry was aimed at benefitting the political rivals, the petition alleged. \u201cNo one has ever objected to the PTI\u2019s opening party bank accounts. And in the ECP\u2019s (Election Commission of Pakistan) ruling there are no instructions for FIA to investigate [PTI\u2019s] bank accounts,\u201d the petition read.
\nIt further said the ECP neither asked Khan for an explanation nor did it demand any details about his bank accounts. \u201cThe ECP had only asked Khan to furnish a record of the transaction.\u201d
\nThe petition asserted that the funds from PTI Punjab\u2019s account were spent on party office running costs, adding that raising funds was every political party\u2019s constitutional right.
\nIt said the interior ministry on August 3 had notified that it was considering putting his name in the exit control list (ECL) through a tweet.
\n\u201cHowever, FIA\u2019s Deputy Director and the investigation officer went a step ahead of the interior ministry launched an investigation and started sending notices for the PTI chairman\u2019s appearance before the inquiry team,\u201d it said.
\nPolitical Parties Order 2002 prescribes a complete procedure for conducting a prohibited funding trial, the petition says and adds that FIA had no jurisdiction to probe into any political party\u2019s prohibited funding.
\nThe PTI urged the court to declare the FIA\u2019s charges against the PTI\/leaders in the said case as illegal, order the FIA\u2019s summons to the PTI chairman withdrawn, and direct FIA to freeze its investigation until this petition was adjudicated.
\nThe FIA Karachi chapter has sent notices to the PTI chief at his residences in Islamabad and Lahore, seeking his appearance in the case on October 31.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PTI\u2019s legal team has challenged the Federal Investigation Agency\u2019s (FIA) summons to the party chairman Imran Khan in Lahore High Court (LHC), seeking a clean…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2513,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"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-2512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512","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=2512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}