Fake degree: LHC seeks report

Petition requesting that Mazhar Hayat Khan's bachelors degree had been shown to be fake.

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court (LHC) has sought a report from the Election Commission of Pakistan on a petition requesting that Mazhar Hayat Khan be stopped from functioning as a member of the National Assembly as his bachelors degree had been shown to be fake.

Justice Umar Ata Bandial appointed Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique as amicus curiae (friend of the court) to provide his legal opinion on whether a parliamentary seat automatically stands vacant if a parliamentarian’s degree is shown to be fake, or whether the Election Commission is required to make a decision on his or her fate.

The court will hold the next hearing on May 8.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Arshad Ibrahim. Advocate Chaudhry Saleem Sadiq Seemab, counsel for the petitioner, submitted that when Khan contested the elections from NA-138 on a PML-N ticket in 2008, he was required to have a bachelors degree.

He said Khan had claimed to have graduated from an American university, but when the Higher Education Commission had checked it found that Khan had not studied or graduated from there.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 18^th, 2012.