PESHAWAR, Sept 12: Dismissing two election appeals, an election tribunal on Thursday upheld the disqualification of PPP’s provincial general secretary Najmuddin Khan after he failed to satisfy queries about his Dars-i-Nizami degree.
The tribunal, comprising Justice Abdur Rauf Lughmani and Justice Ijaz Afzal, asked Mr Khan about the course for Dars-i-Nizami, but none of the subjects he had mentioned was found in that course.
Moreover, the degree produced by him was issued by Anwarul Uloom, Hyderabad, which was not equivalent to the recognized degree of Tanzeemul Madaris.
The nomination papers of Mr Khan were rejected by the returning officers of NA-33 (Upper Dir) and PF-92 (Dir) constituencies. The reasons cited by the returning officers were that the degree of Anwarul Uloom was not equivalent to a graduation degree and, secondly, the said degree appeared to be fake. Mr Khan had challenged the returning officers’ decisions in two appeals.
The appellant had claimed that his degree was duly recognized by the Jamshoro University with which Anwarul Uloom was affiliated.
Fida Gul appeared for the rival candidate, Maulana Asadullah of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal. The lawyer contended that the PPP leader’s degree was fake as Anwarul Uloom was not authorized to issue such degrees.
Justice Afzal asked the PPP leader what Dars-i-Nizami meant, to which he replied that it was the basic course.
REFEREE JUDGE: The appeals of a PML-QA leader, Umer Ayub, against provincial president of the PML-N, Pir Sabir Shah and another candidate, Sheharyar Khan, were fixed before Justice Tariq Pervaiz of the Peshawar High Court as a referee judge on Friday.
The cases were referred to Justice Pervaiz after the two-member election tribunal gave split verdict on the appeals. Mr Ayub claimed that Pir Sabir Shah had not shown certain assets in his nomination papers. He said that as Sabir Shah had concealed his assets, therefore his nomination papers should have been rejected.
APPEAL ACCEPTED: The tribunal accepted an appeal of a candidate from PF-73 (Bannu) and disqualified a rival candidate, Pukhtoon Yar, as he was under-age.
The appellant, Ihsanullah, contended that according to Form B the respondent (Pukhtoon Yar) was born in 1981 and thus he was below 25 years of age, the requirement for a candidate to contest polls.