HEC declares degrees of 47 parliamentarians fake
* 11 MNAs, 6 senators, 15 PA members, 1 SA member, 7 each from KP, Balochistan hold fake/invalid degrees
* HEC submits report on degrees of 293 MPs to ECP
By Irfan Ghauri
ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission has so far declared 47 educational degrees submitted by lawmakers to the Election Commission of Pakistan at the time of the 2008 general elections fake or invalid, with 11 members of the National Assembly, six senators, 15 members of the Punjab Assembly, one of the Sindh Assembly and seven each of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan assemblies, according to documents obtained from the HEC.
The number is likely to go up as scrutiny of the remaining 816 documents is under process.
The HEC on Thursday handed over to the Election Commission a list of 293 educational degrees it had verified so far, out of which 47 had been declared fake, while 246 were genuine. The invalid degrees included those obtained from non-charted institutions.
Out of 1,170 parliamentarians and members of the provincial assemblies, 60 had been elected in by-polls when the bachelors degree condition to contest elections was scrapped, while elections in the NA-42 FATA constituency could not be held so far due to the law and order situation, hence these constituencies would not come under scrutiny.
Senators: The copy of official documents available with Daily Times shows that degrees of three senators had been declared fake, while those of another three were stated invalid.
Among the senators whose degrees had been declared fake included Mir Mohabbat Khan, Gul Muhammad and Rehana Yahya Baloch. The degrees of two independent senators from Balochistan, Wali Muhammad Badini and Nawabzada Muhammad Akbar, were also declared invalid. The degree of another senator Israrullah Khan, the minister for postal services which he claimed to have obtained from the International University of America (London) had also been declared invalid.
MNAs: In the list, there were 11 members of the National Assembly whose degrees were held fake or invalid. Fake degree-holder MNAs include, Syed Salman Mohsin and Mazhar Hayat of the PML-N and Nasir Ali Shah and Akhunzada Chitan of the PPP.
The degrees of Hayatullah Khan Tareen and Ghulam Dastgir Rajar had also been declared fake. The degree of Javed Hussain Shah was declared invalid. However, these three members have already quit the assembly.
A PPP member, Humayun Kurd, who is also a cabinet member, is among the invalid degree holders.
The degree of Haji Roziuddin had been declared fake, while that of another MMA legislator was held invalid by the HEC. Another MNA whose degree was held invalid was Mir Hamadan Khan of the PML-Q.
Punjab: The Punjab Assembly members whose degrees had been declared fake were Waseem Gondal, Samina Khawar Hayyat, Safina Saima Khar, Saima Aziz, Safdar Gill, Zulfiqar Ali, Meer Badshah Qaisrani, Afshan Farooq, Seemal Kamran, Farah Deeba, Syeda Majida Zadi, and Shumaila Rana. The provincial assembly members who held invalid degrees, included Shafiq Gujjar and Ijaz Ahmed.
The HEC has so far found one degree of a Sindh Assembly member, Nawbzada Nadir Magsi, as invalid. The HEC had also declared the degrees held by five legislators of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government fake. There were two members of the assembly who held invalid degrees.
In the Balochistan Assembly, degrees of two members had been declared fake and five degrees invalid. Fake degree holders included Haji Ali Madad and Muhammad Khan Toor. Invalid degree holders were Nawabzada Tariq Magsi, Shama Magsi, Rubina Zafar, Abdul Samad Akhunzada and Yar Muhammad.
Earlier, this list was handed over by the HECs focal person in his first meeting after his nomination with the ECP spokesman, Afzal Khan, who has also been tasked with supervising the process of verification of parliamentarians degrees.
The ECP secretary told reporters that the HEC had sent back copies of 22 degrees for not being legible.
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan