ISLAMABAD: PPP lawmaker Capt (retd) Ghulam Mujtaba Rai, who was elected to the National Assembly from NA-143 constituency, was found to be holding dual nationality on Friday, just a day before the completion of the assembly’s five-year term.

The Supreme Court ordered his disqualification and instructed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to immediately ‘de-notify’ him as a member of parliament.

A three-judge bench — comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed — also ordered ECP Secretary Ishtiak Ahmed Khan to furnish the list of lawmakers disqualified under Article 63(1c) of the Constitution. The ECP was asked to inform the Supreme Court on March 25 about actions initiated against members of parliament for possessing dual nationality.

On Sept 21, the court had disqualified five members of the National Assembly and six of the provincial assemblies of Punjab and Sindh.

MNAs sent home were Chaudhry Zahid Iqbal (for having the citizenship of Great Britain) and Farahnaz Ispahani of the PPP (USA), Farhat Mehmood Khan of the MQM (USA), Jamil Ahmed Malik of the PML-N and PML-Q’s Begum Shahnaz Sheikh.

Disqualified MPAs included PML-N’s Mohammad Akhlaq (USA), Dr Mohammad Ashraf Chohan (UK), Chaudhry Nadeem Khadim (UK), PPP’s Amna Buttar (USA) — all belonging to Punjab — and PPP’s Dr Ahmad Ali Shah (UK) and Ms Nadia Gabol of the MQM, from Sindh.

Referring to Ghulam Mujtaba, the court noted that he had yet to provide the certificate of renunciation of his Canadian citizenship under Section 9(3) of the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1985. But he had furnished a document issued by the High Commission of Canada.

His counsel Munir Paracha requested the bench to refer the case to the ECP on the ground that his client had filed an affidavit before the commission. Ghulam Mujtaba had applied for renunciation of his Canadian nationality on Jan 20, 2007, he told the court. But the court rejected the request.

“Because of non-production of certification of renunciation at the time of filing of nomination papers before the ECP in 2007-08, Ghulam Mujtaba was not qualified to be an MNA under Article 63(1c) of Constitution,” the court order said.

“Thus he is declared disqualified to be the member of the parliament,” the order said, adding that Ghulam Mujtaba had been occupying the position of MNA from the constituency NA-143 as a disqualified person.

Since he had violated Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution, the court observed, he deserved to be dealt with like the members disqualified earlier.