ISLAMABAD: There seemed to be a sense of relief in the National Assembly on Thursday on being told that the Election Commission of Pakistan had agreed with a house committee not to write directly to lawmakers to verify their academic record.

But Law Minister Farooq H. Naek, who led the bipartisan committee that met the commission earlier in the day, warned both the present and future lawmakers that their worries on this count would not go away completely because of a column in nomination paper forms requiring candidates to write their educational qualifications, on oath like other information.

The committee was set up by Speaker Fehmida Mirza to discuss with the commission the house’s concerns over procedures for the verification of academic qualifications of parliamentarians after Leader of Opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan strongly protested in the house on Feb 20 over an apparently impolite letter sent to him and reportedly 249 other legislators by a commission official requiring them to produce their matriculation and intermediate certificates in connection with the verification of their degrees and threatening initiation of criminal proceedings against them if they failed to do so.

Towards the end of Thursday’s sitting, which also saw the passage of two government bills and one private bill, Mr Naek told the house that it was decided in the meeting at the ECP that the commission would not write directly to parliamentarians in carrying out the process of verification of degrees as directed by the Supreme Court.

Instead, he said, the commission would ask the Higher Education Commission (HEC), whose chairman Javaid Leghari, also attended the meeting, to do verification and would send a show-cause notice to a parliamentarian only in the event of an HEC negative report.

Calling it “a very good decision”, the minister expressed his confidence that the commission would hold free and fair elections at their due time.

All the three bills passed on Thursday, including one seeking reforms of laws relating to the institution of Wafaqi Mohtasib, or Federal Ombudsman, to improve its working and a private legislation seeking the establishment of a Pakistan Psychological Council by the government, must be passed by the Senate to become laws.

HURRY FOR UNIVERSITIES: But the most significant part of the day’s legislative business was the government bill piloted by Minister for Capital Administration and Development Nazar Mohammad Gondal, seeking the establishment of a private Capital University of Science and Technology in Islamabad. This was the sixth bill for setting up as many new universities in Islamabad passed by the house in the past few weeks in an apparent hurry before it exhausts its five-year life on March 16.

The bill was passed amid desk-thumping cheers from the treasury benches with some amendments proposed by Pakistan Muslim League-N’s Zahid Hamid, though Mr Gondal denied the PML-N member’s fears, based on information that he said was available on a website, that a university of the same name already exists in the country.

The bill, which cited among the new university’s aims dissemination of knowledge by employing information technology, including satellite, television and internet or through conventional methods, came two days after the house passed another bill for the establishment of a private university with nearly similar name – Capital University, Islamabad – with its aims, including promotion and dissemination of knowledge and technology and “to provide education, training, research, demonstration and scholarship in such branches as it may determine”.

The private bill seeking the establishment of a Pakistan Psychological Council, with its aims, including the provision of “a framework for regularising the field of mental health and psychological services” and supporting “professionals in the discipline of psychology” in the country was deferred on the previous private members’ day on Tuesday and was taken up on Thursday by special permission of the house after its author, Riaz Fatyana of Pakistan Muslim League-Q, agreed to several PML-N amendments.