Imdad 
Action against former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser
In the illegal funding case, a Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) staffer contested the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) call-up notice in its continuing probe, while the Peshawar High Court prevented the FIA from pursuing any action against former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser.
Muhammad Nauman Afzal, deputy director of the Party Management Cell, was one of four PTI officials authorised to accept contributions from Pakistan and elsewhere. According to the conclusions of the Election Commission of Pakistan, others included telephone operator Tahir Iqbal, accountant Muhammad Arshad, and office helper Muhammad Rafiq.
According to Akbar S Babar, the estranged PTI leader and complainant in the illegal funding case, Rs11.104 million was deposited in the four employees’ accounts, which exceeded their known sources of income.
In the petition, Afzal said that “the opening and maintenance of those accounts had never been disputed by the complainant…Those accounts were (admittedly) never utilised for any funding of an enlisted political party, and no such finding was recorded by the Election Commission.”
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The ECP had not asked the FIA to investigate
He further claimed that the ECP had not asked the FIA to investigate any element of these accounts. He stated that these concerns were solely the responsibility of the ECP and not the FIA. The appeal asked the court to overturn the FIA’s call-up notice since it was issued without legal grounds.
Meanwhile, the Peshawar High Court barred the FIA from taking any adverse action against Mr Qaiser and requested responses from the agency on his petition challenging the initiation of an investigation into two PTI bank accounts in Peshawar.
A bench comprised of Justice Shakeel Ahmad and Justice Kamran Hayat Miankhel ordered that the remarks be filed within a fortnight and include papers demonstrating that the matter had been forwarded to the federal government by the ECP for legal action against the petitioner.
