October 08, 2006	Sunday	Ramazan 14, 1427

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LAHORE, Oct 7: An election tribunal on Friday unseated ruling party legislator Amjad Ali Warraich on finding his graduation degree bogus.

The tribunal declared the election of the MNA from Toba Tek Singh district as void because the degree he filed with the returning officer was found to be fake because it was obtained from a religious institution in Azad Kashmir which did not exist.

The tribunal also found that the equivalence certificate which Amjad Warraich had purportedly obtained from the University Grants Commission, later named as the Higher Education Commission, and submitted with the nomination papers for Oct 10, 2002, elections, was also dubious.

Mr Warraich’s election was challenged by PML-N’s M Hamza whose counsel submitted before the tribunal that the record of local government election in 2001 showed that Mr Warraich had mentioned in his nomination papers that he had sought education up to higher secondary level and was never admitted to either a college or a religious school.

Sharifs: Former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif and Begum Kulsoom Nawaz have challenged different sections of the Wealth Tax Act, 1963, which, according to them, should be struck down because they are in conflict with the 1973 Constitution.

The petitioners contend that the local commissioner of wealth tax imposed for fiscal years 1992-93, 93-94, 94-95, 95-96, 96-97 and 97-98 a wealth tax which was assessed on the face value of their shares in their 15 industries. The tax should have been levied on the market value.

Shahbaz Sharif and Kulsoom Nawaz were asked to pay around Rs20 million as wealth tax for six years.

They challenged sections 3, 4, 8(2)(i)(c) of the act pleading that they were in conflict with articles 8, 18, 24 and 25 of the constitution which guaranteed freedom of trade and profession and provided protection against discrimination and blocking the lawful business. The tax, they pleaded, was discriminatory in nature and amounted to block their legal business.

The petitioners submitted that actual value of their assets (shares) was far less than the tax which was assessed on the basis of their whimsical face value as against the correct process of market value.

The two directors of different industrial units have moved the LHC in the light of July 14, 2006, order through which the Supreme Court had directed them to again approach the LHC for settling certain new law points which they had raised in appeals against an LHC decision in 2003.

The LHC had dismissed their plea filed three years ago.