LAHORE, Aug 16: The Supreme Court on Tuesday laid down the criteria for the acceptance of seminaries’ sanads for the purpose of the local government elections. It held that these sanads should be from a recognized religious institution with an equivalence certificate stating that the student had also passed three compulsory subjects – English, Urdu and Pakistan Studies.
A full bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza and Justice Sayeed Ashhad, dismissed two petitions with the observation that the sanad-holders had not qualified in the three compulsory subjects and they had not obtained certificates from a recognized seminary.
Similarly, the Supreme Court observed that they had not produced equivalence certificates from a recognized institution. As such, they were not qualified to contest the local council elections for the offices of nazim and naib nazim.
By implication, the Supreme Court has upheld the judgment delivered by the chief justice of the Lahore High Court on August 3 in which the same conditions were laid down for the acceptance of the sanads on a par with the matriculation certificates. The criteria determined by the Supreme Court has set aside the decisions of the Peshawar High Court and the Balochistan High Court through which the sanads were made acceptable as the qualification needed to contest the local government elections.
Earlier, Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan told the court that all the certificates and degrees issued by religious institutions were good for the purpose of teaching in the same institutions but such sanads did not qualify their holders to contest the local elections for which matriculation was the minimum academic qualification. The certificates issued by non-recognized seminaries could not be treated on a par with matriculation unless the student also passed in three compulsory subjects as offered by a recognized intermediate and secondary education institution.
The attorney-general also referred to a decision taken at a meeting of the Inter-Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) held on July 21, 2005 on the same issue.
As for the assertion by some petitioners that their certificates were on a par with MA and BA degrees, the attorney-general submitted that if they had not obtained a qualification on a par with matriculation, then their degrees held no legal ground to be treated as graduation or post-graduation degrees.
The recognized religious institutions whose certificates and degrees were recognized by the Higher Education Commission were five federal boards of religious education representing three sects and five private institutions. The Wafaqul Madaris Arabia, Multan; the Tanzeemul Madaris (Ahle Sunnat), Lahore; the Wafaqul Madaris Al-Salfia (Ahle Hadith), Faisalabad; the Wafaqul Madaris (Shia); and the Rabitaul Madaris-i-Islamia, Lahore; were the recognized boards for religious education.
The private institutions which the HEC recognized are Jamia Islamia Minhajul Quran; the Jamia Ashrafia, Lahore; the Jamia Taleemat-i-Islamia, Faisalabad; the Darul Uloom Mohammadia Ghausia, Sargodha; and Darul Uloom Binnori Town, Karachi.
Advocates Khwaja Haris Ahmad and Farooq Amjad Mir submitted that the then University Grants Commission had on July 7, 2002, recognized two degrees issued in Shahadatul Aalmia as equivalent to BA and MA. As a result, the candidates obtaining such degrees from any of the seminaries were accepted in general elections and 63 holders of such degrees were still members of the National Assembly and another good number of the Senate and provincial assemblies.
Subsequently, the Election Commission of Pakistan issued a notification which held the ground till August 11 when it notified educational conditions for contestants of nazim and naib nazim endorsing the IBCC decision.
They submitted that once the election schedule was announced on June 30, the Election Commission could not issue another administrative order. The August 11 notification was unlawful and should be struck down.
The same bench of the Supreme Court had on Monday ruled that an equivalent certificate, issued by a competent authority, was necessarily required to hold the sanad of a religious seminary on a par with the matriculation certificate of a board of intermediate and secondary education as the minimum qualification for a candidate for the office of nazim or naib nazim of a union council.
