LAHORE, May 13: The petitioner challenging the return of PML-N candidate Sheikh Amjad Aziz to the assembly from PP-156 (Lahore) pointed out to the Lahore High Court on Tuesday that Mr Aziz had mentioned his educational qualification as BA in his nomination papers but appended the copy of a BSc final examination result card with the papers filed with the returning officer concerned.

PML-Q’s Haroon Akhtar Khan, the petitioner, challenged the election of Sheikh Amjad Aziz on grounds that the latter had appended a bogus BSc result card with his nomination papers, which showed him as a distinction holder in mathematics. According to the petitioner, his rival candidate did not even clear his intermediate examination and twice failed in the mathematics paper.

He also questioned the validity of an FIR filed with the returning officer concerned, which said that the petitioner had lost all of his original educational certificates including that of BSc on the last day of filing nomination papers. The returning officer for PP-156 allowed the respondent’s application for contesting the elections on the basis of a photocopy of the BSc result card.

The petitioner’s counsel, Umar Atta Bandiyal, placed the accepted nomination papers of Sheikh Aziz before the court, saying that in those papers he was mentioned as a BA degree holder. “There is an anomaly as on one hand the respondent has appended the BSc result intimation card with his nomination papers and on the other he claims to have obtained a BA degree in the same papers,” the counsel submitted.

The deputy secretary to the Punjab Board of Technical Education, Mohammad Ayub, tendered the record pertaining to the examinations of D.Com and C.Com (the intermediate-level degrees in commerce) taken by the respondent.

Mr Bandiyal argued that it was quite evident from the record that the respondent did not opt for the subjects of mathematics and statistics in his commerce education. Under the rules, no candidate could opt for Bsc in mathematics and statistics without an educational background in these subjects, he added.

In his testimony, Mr Akhtar claimed that the respondent did not even disclose his sources of income in the nomination papers, which was a key requirement under the election rules. He claimed that he had secured third position in the Punjab University’s BSc examination in 1974 with the same combination of subjects that the respondent claimed to have adopted. According to the petitioner, it was impossible for a person opting for commerce subjects at the intermediate level to get distinction in mathematics and statistics in the BSc examination. The petitioner concluded his testimony against Sheikh Aziz, whereupon the court fixed May 30 for recording the respondent’s. Eight witnesses were produced before the court by Mr Akhtar in support of his petition.

On the last hearing, the Punjab University registrar had claimed that the PML-N candidate had filed a bogus graduation degree with the returning officer concerned as he was never issued a BSc degree. The official had deposed that the university record did not show that Sheikh Aziz ever appeared in a BSc examination.

Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) record superintendent Mohammad Ishfaq deposed that Sheikh Amjad had twice failed in his intermediate examination and did not appear for the third time. As testified by the witness, there was no evidence available on the BISE record to show that the candidate had made the third attempt.