ISLAMABAD, June 22: The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a decision of the Punjab Election Tribunal of disqualifying Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) candidate Sheikh Amjad Aziz from being elected provincial assembly member from the constituency PP-156 for not being a graduate.
An SC bench comprising Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar in a short order had already directed fresh election in PP-156, Lahore, unseating PML (Quaid-i-Azam) MPA Haroon Akhtar.
In its 13-page detailed judgment released on Monday, the chief justice held that the finding of the tribunal was supported by irrefutable material and therefore no contrary view was possible. "Accordingly, we uphold this finding," he said.
Amjad Aziz was elected from PP-156 but was disqualified by the election tribunal on Feb 16 for possessing a fake graduation degree. The tribunal declared Mr Akhtar, the runner-up candidate, successful.
Mr Aziz filed an appeal before the Supreme Court, challenged the decision of the tribunal. He had secured 11,716 votes while Mr Akhtar obtained 10,711 votes during the general election. The constituency had over 100,000 registered voters but only 37,087 of them voted.
They appellant told the court that at the time of filling of his nomination papers his bag containing his documents was stolen, but he filed his papers, which were accepted. He applied for obtaining a degree but the Punjab University sought a few days for issuing it, he said.
The judgment said the appellant had told the court that he did his matriculation in 1982 with a compartment in mathematics, which he cleared in supplementary examination.
He did his certificate in commerce and degree in commerce from the Pitman System College, Anarkali. Later he appeared in bachelors of arts examination and obtained good marks.
While referring to the question whether Mr Akhtar should be declared returned in place of Mr Aziz, the judgment discussed the phrase 'throw away votes,' - if an elector knows that the candidate for whom he is about to vote is disqualified and yet votes for him, the vote is thrown away.
Citing different judgments, the chief justice said that if the disqualification of a returned candidate was not notarized at the time of polling, the votes polled in his favour could not be thrown away by giving the seat to the candidate with the next highest number of votes.
"In the instant appeal, it was not known to the voters that the appellant was not a graduate and lacked requisite qualification for contesting the election," the judgment said. It said no steps were taken by anybody to bring to the knowledge of the electors that the appellant was not a graduate.
"The nomination papers of the appellant were accepted without any objection. This unequivocally postulates that the voters were unaware of this disqualification, therefore, rule of throw away votes could not be invoked," the order said.
