PESHAWAR, Jan 16: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday set aside the judgment of election appellate tribunal regarding disqualification of former MPA Faisal Zaman and allowed him to contest the forthcoming polls.

Mr Zaman is contesting elections on the ticket of PML-Q from PF-52, Haripur IV.

A two-member bench of PHC comprising Chief Justice Tallat Qayyum Qureshi and Justice Malik Ghulam Mohiuddin accepted a writ petition filed by Mr Zaman challenging his disqualification by an election appellate tribunal of the high court last month.

The tribunal had accepted an appeal filed by his rival candidate Farooq Shah against acceptance of his nomination papers by the concerned returning officer. The rival candidate claimed that Mr Zaman possessed a graduation degree issued by some unknown university in Nigeria which was also not recognised by the Higher Education Commission.

Due to lawyers’ boycott the candidates argued their cases themselves.

Mr Zaman stated that his degree was genuine and the university which issued it existed in Nigeria. He contended that the appellate tribunal had erred in disqualifying him without recording evidences about the verification of his degree properly.

Mr Shah contended that Mr Zaman had produced degree of Ahmadio Billeo University of Nigeria, which was an unknown university. He stated that the HEC had also declared the degree forged as the said university was not recognised by it.

The bench accepted the writ petition and observed that the rival candidate could challenge the issue before the election tribunal to be constituted after the polls in case the petitioner won. It was added that as question of facts were involved, therefore, it would be appropriate to challenge the issue before election tribunal which could record evidence.

Meanwhile, in a writ petition filed by former federal minister Anwar Saifullah Khan the same bench directed a former MPA and his rival candidate, Malik Imran, to produce relevant orders of the Supreme Court and Sindh High Court regarding his graduation degree.

The petitioner sought disqualification of Mr Imran on the ground that he possessed fake graduation degree. Mr Saifullah is contesting polls from PF-75, Lakki Marwat.

Another bench comprising Justice Hamid Farooq Durrani and Justice Alam Khan dismissed a petition and upheld disqualification of a candidate, Muhammad Siraj Khan, by the returning officer.