LAHORE, Jan 6: A full bench stayed byelections to PP-112 (Kharian) and admitted the appeal of Tanveer Ashraf Kaira for regular hearing against his disqualification as a member of the Punjab Assembly.

A single bench of the LHC had cancelled Kaira’s membership for possessing a fake BA degree.

The full bench comprising Justice M. Javed Buttar, Ejaz Ahmad Chaudhry and Syed Jamshed Ali Shah observed in a short order that the disqualification orders had not been suspended and the bench would conduct a detailed hearing of the impugned matter to dig out the facts.

The bench ordered sealing of the Punjab University official record. The provincial election commission would be issued directions for holding byelections in PP-112 later on, in case the disqualification orders were upheld by the bench. The detailed judgment would be released later on. Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, counsel for the appellant, submitted that the BA degree had not been issued to his client since convocation of his batch was yet to be held. Instead, the appellant had been issued a provisional result card in which he had been shown to have cleared all the subjects and there was no evidence available on the record to suggest that the result card was fake. As submitted by the counsel, the appellant had cleared the Political Science paper in the supplementary examination by securing 40 marks and the allegation that he had failed (in this paper) was unfounded.

The counsel for the Punjab University (PU) submitted that the document was fake since the appellant had failed in the Political Science paper in the annual examination of 1980 and the card showing him passed in all subjects was fake.

According to the PU, the notification appended with the official record showing the appellant successful had not been signed by the controller, examinations, which had given rise to the suspicion on the authenticity of the result card.

The bench examined the official record and observed that all the entries showing failed candidates as successful in the supplementary examinations had not been signed by any authority. It was observed that the appellant should be given a chance to produce evidence since none of the entry was signed by any authority. It was further observed that the PU had declared the result card as fake merely on the ground that it had not been signed by the controller and there was no evidence to support this argument.

According to the bench members, they would also like to examine the genuineness of the official record and for this purpose the record was being sealed.

Petition Filed: A petition seeking the disqualification of Punjab Assembly speaker Afzal Sahi was filed before the Lahore High Court on Monday.

Petitioner Haji Liaquat Ali alleged that Afzal Sahi had used unfair means to win election from PP-51 by misusing his social contacts with bureaucrats and had also been favoured by the presiding officer concerned in compilation of results.

The petition filed through Zafar Iqbal Chohan Advocate seeks the disqualification the respondent under the election laws

Khwajas Petition: Two petitions of Dr Ahmad Javed Khwaja and four family members would be taken up by the LHC on Tuesday (today).

Hamid Khan, the petitioners’ counsel, on Monday argued before the court that the three family members — Dr Umar Karar, Dr Khizar Ali, Muhammad Usman — had not been produced before Justice Bashir A. Mujahid on Dec 31 by the state despite court orders in this regard.

Justice Buttar observed that court hearing the petition on that day seemed to have been satisfied with the state version that they had been detained under the Security of Pakistan Act, 1952, and could not be produced for security reasons.

The counsel however submitted that he would still be pressing the habeas corpus petition along with the petition challenging their detention after which the court adjourned the proceedings for Tuesday.