Earlier, Yar Mohammad Rind, who was a federal minister during Mushrraf’s government, had filed a writ petition before the court challenging the legality and authority of ECP to question his educational degree. Degrees of many parliamentarians including, Yar Muhammad Rind, were declared as fake by the Higher Education Commission (HEC), after which the ECP wanted him to appear before its committee with the original degree that he got from Madrassa Jamia Anwarul Islam of Sukkur.
The petitioner maintained that the qualification of an elected member could be challenged only at two stages, ‘before the election in front of the presiding officer, or after the election through an election petition’. He asked the court to issue notice to ECP committee terming their action as illegal and directed the commission not to touch a matter that had already been decided by the court of law.
The lawyer of the petitioner, Sardar Abdul Razzaq, said, “The issue was decided for once and for all in 2002, when Nawab Mohammad Aslam Khan Raisani challenged his degree in an election petition.”
“The Balochistan High Court had issued ruling in favour of Rind,” he said. “In September 2002, returning officer of the University Grants Commission had recognised the degree as genuine,” Razzaq said.
The petitioner further said that the four members of ECP scrutiny committee, headed by a joint secretary of ECP and comprising a member from Higher Education Commission and two others, were neither from ECP nor could be termed as part of the commission under law. “These people had initiated the proceedings to examine Rind’s qualification, who themselves were not members of the ECP,” Razzaq added.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 23rd, 2010.
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