ISLAMABAD: Despite overwhelming support by the media and the civil society, the higher judiciary and the Election Commission are silent on defining a clear mechanism to oust all kinds of fraudsters from poll process. Will there be any benefit of any activism during the next five years if no step is taken now to ensure strict implementation of the Constitution and law to safeguard the upcoming Parliament from such cheaters and fraudsters? ECP members are on record making statements like, “Supreme Court has tied our hands - we can’t disqualify fake degree-holder Parliamentarians because of the Supreme Court judgement on the issue.” Fake degree cases of more than a dozen ex-parliamentarians, including that of country’s former education minister Sheikh Waqas Akram, are pending before courts for years without any decision. All institutions have now verified that Sheikh Waqas’ degrees are fake. Now even his A-level certificate has been declared fake by a prestigious UK institution. This revelation has rebuffed many mouthpieces of the powerful political elite in the media who were repeatedly attacking HEC for demanding intermediate, A-Level or matriculation certificates while the requirement for contesting elections was graduation. How could anyone who did not clear his FA or A-Level get a BA degree without resorting to a fraud? This is not the first case where inter or matriculate certificate of a politician has been proved fake. While obtaining fake graduation degree, many forget to obtain degrees of lower classes. The real test is for the PML-N and its chief Nawaz Sharif, the so-called flag-bearers of the politics of principles. The PML-N has accepted Sheikh Waqas after the story of his fake degree. Now every fact regarding his degrees has come on record and even a top and reputed foreign institution has declared his degree fake. The nation will be waiting for Nawaz Sharif’s decision to oust Sheikh Waqas from his party on the basis of all these documentary evidence from foreign as well as all concerned Pakistani institutions. Though the law is very clear - if any statement in the nomination forms or any documents (even previously filed nomination papers) is found false as per the information provided by any government authority (Higher Education Commission (HEC in this case) he/she will be declared ineligible to contest the elections by the returning officer and same principle has to be followed by the tribunal and other appellate courts. However, ECP says that according to its and returning officers’ understanding any politician declared as a fake degree holder by the HEC could only be disqualified from contesting elections after a court of law convicts him. ECP has already cleared 27 of 56 parliamentarians declared as fake degree-holders by the HEC. No criminal proceedings have been initiated against them. Moreover, only one case sent for criminal proceedings has been decided so far and ECP is hell bent not to disqualify any person till a conviction. ECP is not even clear about the cases of around 181 parliamentarians who blatantly confronted the Supreme Court orders and contemptuously refused to get their degrees verified and present their matriculation and intermediate degrees. Most of these 181 parliamentarians are known fake degree holders. Around 14,000 candidates filed their nomination papers in 2008 elections and submitted their graduation degrees. According to ECP officials, more than 2000 degrees among these 14000 are fake and most of these powerful politicians are all set to run for 2013 elections. HEC says it is ready to verify all such degrees within a few days but neither ECP is interested in undertaking this exercise (clearly under pressure from the influential politicians) nor the judiciary has passed any order on this count despite pending petitions and raising of issue many times. ECP believe that though the Constitution and the law are clear to disqualify any person holding a fake degree or who has ever produced a fake document but the Supreme Court’s 2010 judgement on fake degrees has created a hurdle in disqualifying a candidate, as according to the understanding of ECP members, the judgement talks of disqualification of a person after his conviction. ECP needs a clear interpretation on all these questions and procedures to disqualify any candidate during the scrutiny of nomination papers (scheduled from march 31 to April 6) and clear order to get degrees of all contestants of 2008 elections verified through HEC. Veteran politician and petitioner of historic NRO case, Dr Mubashir Hassain has already moved a petition asking the apex court to respond to many questions in this regard by interpreting the relevant laws. On Thursday, Dr Mubeshir also filed an application requesting for early hearing.
