LAHORE: Chief Justice of Lahore High Court Umar Ata Bandial on Tuesday fixed July 15 for final arguments on an election petition against PML-N’s ex-MNA Rao Mazhar Hayat Khan over charges of having a fake degree.
Chief Justice directed the counsel of former PML-N MNA and the amicus curie (friend of court) Muhammad Azhar Siddique to come with final arguments on the next date of hearing. A citizen Arshad Ibrahim had filed the petition alleging that Mazhar had won the national assembly election from NA-138 Kasur on a fake degree. He said that on the direction of election commission, Higher Education Commission (HEC) sent MNA’s graduation degree to the concerned university in USA, which did not verify the degree.
He said that as the degree of Mazhar was not verified, session judge, Kasur had ordered registration of a criminal case against the MNA and police station B-division lodged an FIR on the complaint of regional election commissioner Lahore. Petitioner claimed that since the charges of bogus degree against the respondent stood proved and a case was also registered in this regard, therefore, the MNA should be declared disqualified under article 62 & 63 of the Constitution.
He had requested that the MNA is prevented from working and election commission be directed to cancel his notification. He further requested that the sessions judge be ordered to commence trial against MNA and punish him under the law. On February 8, Mazhar’s counsel had submitted a copy of the MNA’s resignation from the National Assembly. The MNA’s counsel requested to discharge the proceedings of the petition, as Rao Mazhar was no more an assembly member.
Petitioner’s counsel took the plea that tendering resignation did not affect the court’s proceedings as the respondent (MNA) contested general election by cheating the election commission and the public. The court had appointed amicus curie (friend of court) Muhammad Azhar Siddique to assist on the point whether a public office holder could be declared disqualified after resignation.
This article originally appeared on dailytimes
