The signatures verifying Senior Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Minister Rahimdad Khan’s degree are forged, officials of the Gomal University (GU) in Dera Ismail Khan told the Peshawar High Court on Thursday.
A divisional bench of the PHC, comprising Justice Muftahuddin and Justice Mian Fasihul Mulk, was hearing a writ petition lodged by Farman Ali, a voter from Mardan, challenging the legitimacy of the minister’s degree.
The court was informed that Khan’s BA degree was, in fact, fake and that the original owner of the degree was Rehim Khan, a resident of Lakki Marwat and a traffic police inspector.
Deputy Registrar Degree Cell Hafizullah Khattak, Superintendent Degree Cell Altaf and Assistant Controller Naseer Khan of GU informed the court that they were not aware of the statement confirming the originality of the minister’s degree. They added that they were asked to sign a white paper.
“All these signatures are fakes and we were not aware of [the document]. This is not our statement,” the officials said.
Senior Minister Rahimdad Khan contested against Shahid Khan and Riaz Khattak in the general elections held in 2008 from PK-27 Mardan.
Correction: The general elections date was incorrect in an earlier version of this article. The correction has been made.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 24th, 2012.
COMMENTS (4)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
1732762837-0/Taylor-(3)1732762837-0-405x300.webp "article")
@Pro Bono Publico: My quote above is taken from the reply of a PAK politician sometime back. Forgery is a crime. Agree.
But I don't agree with the degree requirements for a politician to stand in an election. By this definition, neither Bill Gates nor the late Steve Jobs would be eligible for election in PAK -you get the point.
Education comes from several walks of life. Some learn it in universities and some learn it in the streets of Karachi and others learn it in the fields of Punjab, whereas some create education for the universities to follow.
The proportion of college graduates in PAK populace is dismal and disproportionate in different regions and again biased in favor of male sex compared to the females. As such, the degree requirement inadvertently skews the political participation only to a wealthy few and certain ethnic group and sex and marginalizes others.
The only condition for political office is age, besides citizenship, because it is understood with age an individual matures in thinking.
Politics of governance is a common sense and no text book can teach that and politics is certainly not taught or learnt in universities.
@John B: The current parliament was elected under that law -- exclusive of its merits or demerits. If the candidates disagreed with it, they should have boycotted the elections, like PTI did, citing the fact that it was an NOR-directed exercise. Once, these folks agreed to those terms, they need to abide by them. Educated or uneducated, a forgery is crime.
ET General Elections were held in 2008 please correct.
"A degree is a degree, fake or original"
The idea of "educated" elites ruling the "uneducated" masses is an abandoned philosophy in a democracy and why PAK is following this course is a mystery.
Unless the rural "poor" "illiterate" "uneducated" "shabby" masses feel that they also have an equal opportunity for a say in the country's direction by sitting next to the Oxford or Harvard educated elites in NA, PAK democracy will remain only a feudal educated Lords democracy of sixteenth century England.
PAK is creating a two class system-master and slave. I am not sure, if the degree requirement is in the spirit of the constitution as stated in the preamble.