KARACHI, Aug 7 The Provincial Election Tribunal, Sindh, headed by Justice Ghulam Sarwar Korai on Saturday adjourned till August 21 the hearing of an election petition filed by PPP-Parliamentarian candidate Sajid Ali challenging election of PML-Functional candidate Pir Syed Sadaruddin Shah Rashidi on NA-216, Khairpur-II, in the February 2008 elections.

Sajid Ali submitted in the tribunal that Pir Sadaruddin Shah was not qualified to contest the election as he did not possess a graduation degree which was mandatory under Article 8-A of the Conduct of General Election Order 2002.

He alleged that his rival had contested the election by filing a fake degree showing his year of obtaining the Karachi University degree as 1988. He submitted that the degree actually belonged to Sadaruddin Shah, son of Ali Mardan Shah and not the rival candidate whose full name was Pir Syed Sadaruddin Shah Rashidi, son of Pir Shah Mardan Shah-II Pir Pagaro.

Advocate Ghulam Shabbir Babar, the counsel for Pir Sadaruddin Shah Rashidi moved a miscellaneous application under section 52 and 63 of the Representative of Peoples Act 1976 stating that the election petition was time barred and prayed for its dismissal.

MPA's certificate

The tribunal also issued notice to the respondent, Ghulam Qadir Malkani of the PPP-Parliamentarians, on an application seeking verification of his intermediate certificate.

The plea was filed by PML-Q MPA Mohammad Ali Malkani, a member of the senate's standing committee on public health engineering & information technology, whose election as MPA in the February 2008 election from PS-87, Thatta, was challenged by Ghulam Qadir Malkani.

Advocate Abdul Qadir Bhatti, the counsel for Mohammad Ali Malkani, submitted in the tribunal that Ghulam Qadir Malkani possessed a fake intermediate certificate showing it to have been issued by the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Hyderabad. The counsel further submitted that the respondent had shown to have been a regular student of the Government Islamia College, Badin. He claimed that the board's record, however, showed that Ghulam Qadir Malkani had never remained a regular student of the college, whose principal also confirmed this in his letter dated December 19, 2007 addressed to the board authorities.

He prayed to the tribunal to order a verification of the respondent's HSC degree through the controller of examinations, BISE, Hyderabad and principal of the Badin college.

After hearing the arguments, Justice Ghulam Sarwar Korai of the Sindh High Court issued notice for August 21 to Ghulam Qadir Malkani.

The tribunal also granted further time to advocate Abdul Qadir Bhatti as last chance to file counter an affidavit/rejoinder to the application.—PPI