LAHORE, July 9: The Lahore High Court on Wednesday reversed the decision of a single bench to disqualify PPP’s Tanveer Ashraf Kaira from membership of the provincial assembly on charges of filing a bogus graduation degree with the returning officer concerned in the last general election.

A full bench, headed by Justice Javed Buttar, allowed in its short order the appeal of Mr Kaira against the Nov 4 decision of Justice Raja Sabir. The detailed judgment would be issued later on.

The petitioner had challenged his disqualification through an intra-court appeal to the full bench earlier this year, but the bench ruled that the appeal was not maintainable on technical grounds since it required a detailed inquiry beyond the jurisdiction of court.

Later, the disqualified MPA moved the Supreme Court against the full bench’s verdict. Restoring the membership of Mr Kaira as interim relief, the SC sent the appeal back to the LHC with directions that it be decided within two months.

Chaudhry Riasat Ali, a voter from PP-112, had challenged the election of Mr Kaira through a writ petition last year alleging that the latter had furnished the RO with a bogus graduation degree. In response to this petition, the Punjab University filed a written statement with the single bench saying that the mark-sheet of MPA appeared to be a bogus one. The MPA was disqualified by the court. The relevant record of PU was sealed on the orders of full bench during the hearing.

Azmat Saeed and Aitzaz Ahsan, counsel for the petitioner, argued before the full bench that no decision could be taken on the basis of record that was never shown to the petitioner. The counsel submitted that in response to his application for re-examination of the relevant record, the PU had claimed that it did not maintain record of graduation degrees that were issued before 1993. How the PU could have supported the allegation on the basis of record that was non-existent and was even able to file it with the court, they said.

In response to a court query regarding authenticity of his degree, the petitioner claimed that both the award list and the notification pertaining to announcement that he had passed the examination were on PU record. The authenticity of signatures of the controller and deputy and assistant controllers of examination and the administration officer concerned on the impugned notification had also not been denied by the PU.

The counsel also assailed the verdict of single bench on grounds that an election matter could only be challenged through an election petition rather than a writ petition. “A full bench of the LHC had ruled that a writ petition regarding an election matter was barred by Article 225 of the 1973 Constitution so the impugned judgment was pronounced without any constitutional jurisdiction.” It was contended that even the voter who had challenged the petitioner’s victory, did not have locus standi as he was not affected by the petitioner’s victory.

The counsel further contended that the single bench had “not followed the rule of consistency” in singling out the petitioner for disqualification and dismissing all the other identical petitions against the graduation degrees of winning candidates from various constituencies.

“The returning officer concerned had accepted the petitioner’s nomination papers without any objection. Besides, the PU did not file any affidavit to refute the petitioner’s claim of success in BA examination.”