Fake degrees: Another PML-N MNA’s academic qualifications challenged

Petitioner says Rana Zahid Hussain lied more than once.

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court on Friday observed that the seat of a parliamentarian is a matter of public welfare and any citizen could challenge a member’s election to the seat.

Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial gave the remarks when the filing of a petition – that seeks the disqualification of PML-N MNA Rana Zahid Hussain – was challenged.

The court adjourned the case hearing until the first week of September after the absence for the respondent’s counsel.

Waheed Sabir, a voter from NA-166 Pakpattan, has filed the petition challenging the academic qualifications of the MNA. The petition says that the Balochistan University examinations controller had already informed the Lahore High Court that the MNA had lied about his intermediate certificate while registering for BA exams. The varsity’s report had said that when the university had sent Hussain’s intermediate certificate to the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Karachi, for verification, the board had said that the certificate was that of supplementary exams 2004. The MNA had claimed in his BA forms that his certificate was an annual exam certificate, the petitioner says.

The registration number mentioned by Hussain on the BA admission form was not allotted to him but to one Aurangzeb Magsi, reads the petition.

Hussain, it says, submitted fake documents for the BA 2006 exams.

The petition states that since the MNA had a fake bachelor’s degree, he stood disqualified.

It has been pointed out in the petition that in 2002 the legislator’s degree had been rejected by Justice Nasim Sikandar, the presiding officer of the election tribunal. Later, Hussain produced a degree from the Balochistan University, of which the varsity had no record, it says.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2012.