In any civilised people holding fake degree would have been incarcerated and fined for constitutional impropriety.
KARACHI: A few days ago the Supreme Court permanently disqualified Sumaira Malik, a PML-N MNA, from contesting election for having a fake degree and using that to keep her in power and pelf after winning a National Assembly seat in 2008. She was also a federal minister at that time. According to a report, “the court observed that Sumaira Malik had obtained a BA degree by way of impersonation meaning thereby that at the time when she filed nomination papers, she was not qualified to contest and had proved herself not sagacious, righteous, non-profligate, honest and ameen in terms of Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution … ”.
The case goes back to 2002 when Umar Aslam first filed a case of academic fraud against her. Punjab University declared her degree bona fide. In 2008, her election from Khushab was questioned on the same grounds. The Election Commission of Pakistan procrastinated and eventually ruled in her favour this year. Shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court gave its verdict. A much less highlighted piece of related news is that the former MNA’s husband, a senior bureaucrat, attested her documents. “According to the judgment, her husband at the given time was Additional Secretary (Schools) and Punjab University is controlled by the Provincial Education Department as per the rules of Business of the Punjab Government. Thus, he was in a position to … manipulate matters in the university and actually did so.” In this, as a servant of the state, he aided and abetted a crime and himself was part of the violation of the Constitution and the Civil Service Rules he was bound to follow and obey.
Ms Malik has a younger sister, Ms Ayla Malik, currently a PTI stalwart, who moved from Farooq Leghari’s Millat Party of 1998 to the National Alliance as an MNA during Musharraf’s reign. In 2011, she jumped ship to the PTI which gave her a ticket for the NA-71 by-election. Possibly keeping family traditions alive, Ms Ayla Malik was also disqualified by the Supreme Court appellate bench for similar educational fraud. The great leader of the PTI called it a “technical lacuna”.
Both Sumaira and Ayla are granddaughters of the late Malik Amir Khan of Kalabagh and also happen to be nieces of the late former president Sardar Farooq Leghari. What a tribute to the integrity and honour of those families. Possibly, these frauds also explain and make it easier to understand why Pakistan is where it now is. An interesting aside now, and quoting from a report in your newspaper: “Official figures reveal that around 50 MNAs and MPAs may have alleged dubious or fake degrees and they belong to the ruling PML-N, followed by the PTI, which has degrees of 24 of its MPAs and MNAs being challenged in the courts.”
In any civilised country these persons would have been incarcerated and fined for constitutional impropriety. In what we like to call our ‘brotherly’ countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the less- religiously-bound China, those infractions would have earned a summary execution in one of the three favourite ways employed there. But then, our priorities are different. Does anybody now understand why our choice is essentially limited to death by extortionists, drones or by the Taliban?
Dr Mervyn Hosein
Published in The Express Tribune, November 4th, 2013.
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