The PTI leader’s appeal against his disqualification from holding public office seems to have suffered an unrecoverable collapse with the SCP finding how his case has been built on lies.
By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: An appeal by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Faisal Vawda seems to collapse in the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) Wednesday after the justices detected deliberate lying in court filings to hoodwink the legal process.
Justice Ayesha Malik, a member of the three-member bench headed by the Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Umar Ata Banfdial hearing the case noted that the passport submitted by Vawda to the returning officer in 2018 had already expired in 2015.
She said the number of this expired passport was different from another passport number provided by Vawda for the record, which clearly meant a new passport had been issued after the expiration of the old one.
In fact, the cancellation stamp on the passport submitted was evidence that a new passport had indeed been issued, Justice Malik said. How then could a canceled passport be proof of renunciation of citizenship, the court was askance.
The court expressed its concern over the concealment of facts by the petitioner. The petitioner’s lawyer argued that Vawda’s affidavit used the word passport, not citizenship. Justice Mansoor Ali Shah said that in the affidavit, the passport meant citizenship of another country.
Justice Shah remarked that another lie of Faisal Vavoda has come to light. The Chief Justice of Pakistan remarked on this occasion that this matter has become very serious.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had disqualified Faisal Vawda for life from parliament this February for submitting a false affidavit. The ECP ruling also required Vawda to return all the perks and privileges he received as a member of the National Assembly, although he had resigned his National Assembly seat by that time after being elected to the Senate,
The PTI stalwart’s disqualification by ECP came under Article 62(1)(f), which requires parliamentarians to be “sadiq” (truthful) and “amin” (honest) – and which was used by the SCP under former Chief Justice Saqib Nisar to disqualify former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in 2017.
Vawda then appealed the ECP decision in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which upheld the ECP decision. Chief Justice IHC Justice Athar Minallah, who heard the appeal, declared that it was non-maintainable and upheld the ECP decision observing that there was no reason to interfere with it.
The court noted how Vawda used delaying tactics before the ECP and the IHC, how he refused to submit a certificate of abandoning US citizenship, and how he resigned his National Assembly seat to frustrate his possible disqualification.
Vawda’s lawyer Waseem Sajjad sought time for preparation from the court, but the court rejected his request and postponed the hearing of the matter till next week.
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