The Supreme Court (SC) has directed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to initiate action against all politicians that contested the 2008 general elections using forged documents and degrees, stating that it is the body’s constitutional obligation to do so.
Releasing a 14-page detailed verdict of a judgment passed by a three-member bench on June 15 in a case pertaining to the disqualification of a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate from PP-34, Sargodha, the SC ordered the ECP to depute one of its senior officers to ensure that the investigations are conducted honestly, efficiently and expeditiously.
The verdict, which was penned by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, heaped scathing criticism on Rizwan Gill – the MPA who had appealed to the SC against his disqualification by the Lahore High Court for holding a fake bachelors degree – and expressed concern over the phenomenon of fake documents. Such attempts, said the verdict, if not nipped in the bud, could lead a society into the dark depths of destruction.
The court, in its judgment, underlined the stature and importance of the Parliament of any country, saying that it was an institution that not only made the policies and the laws of the nation but, in fact, shaped and carved its very destiny.
“And here is a man, who being constitutionally and legally debarred from being its member, managed to sneak into it by making a false statement on oath and by using bogus, fake and forged documents, polluting the piety of this pious body”, it further said referring to Gill.
“His said conduct demonstrates not only his callous contempt for the basic norms of honesty, integrity and even for his own oath but also undermines the sanctity, the dignity and the majesty of the said august House”, the verdict stated.
“Needless to say that punishment and consequent disqualification of such-like politicians would not be acting under-mining the dignity and the majesty of the Houses of Legislature but an act in aid of enhancing the same.”
The verdict pointed out that the law made possessing a fake degree a penal offence, punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with a fine which may extend to five thousand rupees or with both.
“The provisions of section 100 declare that a person guilty of a corrupt practice could then get disqualified for a specified term from being elected as a member of an Assembly”, the court further observed. The SC also ordered the sessions courts that would deal with the ECP’s action against parliamentarians should also play their part without delay. “The learned sessions judges across the country to whom these trials shall then be entrusted, are also directed to conclude the same without any delay, in consonance with the spirit of the Elections’ laws as displayed, inter-alia, by the provisos newly added to sub-section (1-A) of section 67 of the said Act of 1976 through the Amending Act No. IV of 2009 promulgated on 2.11.2009”, the court verdict said.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Ghulam Rabbani and Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday, in its ruling said: “It is incumbent upon the ECP, in discharge of its constitutional obligations to guard against corrupt practices, to launch prosecution of persons, who stood accused of the commission of the same.”
“Every law of the land, so long as it exists on the statute books, has to be respected and must be followed”, the court verdict concluded.
Published in the Express Tribune, June 25th, 2010.
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