PHC stops criminal proceedings against ex-MPA

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday stopped the Dera Ismail Khan district and sessions judge from initiating criminal proceedings against a former provincial legislator in a fake degree case.
A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Irshad Qaisar stopped the proceedings in a criminal against former member provincial assembly Javed Akbar till next order of the court.
The petitioner lawyer, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, submitted before the bench that the petitioner was disqualified by the Election Tribunal on a fake ‘Sanad’, which was then maintained by the Supreme Court.
On December 11, 2013 the Election Tribunal disqualified Javed Akbar Khan as member provincial assembly. He had won the election on constituency PK-68 as an independent candidate.The tribunal presided over by Yahya Zahid Gilani accepted an election petition filed by a rival candidate, Makhdoom Mureed Kazim, who is a former provincial minister.
Later, the Dera Ismail Khan district and sessions judge, started criminal proceedings against the petitioner on the compliant of the Election Commission of Pakistan. Qazi Muhammad Anwar said that his client had also filed an appeal against the ECP directives about the criminal case against the petitioner about a fake ‘Sanad’ case, in which the Supreme Court had issued notice to the ECP.
He said he had provided the Supreme Court order in the court of district and sessions judge to stop the proceedings till a final order of the apex court, but court continued the proceedings and was going to issue a decision within two days.The counsel requested the court to restrain the sub-ordinate court from decision in the case till disposal of the petitioner’s cases in Supreme Court and Peshawar High Court.