Chief Election Commission of Pakistan has sought validity of graduation degrees issued by respective seminaries to the candidates who contested October polls and asked the Pakistan Madressah Education Board (PMEB) to verify the authenticity of these degrees.
The PMEB has constituted a seven members committee to decide the matter and to establish a final opinion in this regard.
PMEB member Mufti Abdul Qavi, while talking to this scribe on Wednesday stated that the CEC earlier wrote a letter to Higher Education Commission for seeking its viewpoint on the degrees issued by the registered religious seminaries.
However, University Grants Commission has validated these degrees equal to MA, BA, FA, and SSC and the Election Commission of Pakistan had accepted the candidature of a number of candidates in the light of UGC recommendations.
Now this issue is being raised to blackmail the candidates of MMA and other parties seeking their support for strengthening against the fragile government of Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, said a renowned politician Sahibzada Farooq Ali Khan. He said that candidatures accepted based on the degrees issued by the religious seminaries cannot be cancelled and the elected persons cannot be declared disqualified at this juncture.
Mufti Abdul Qavi said that Madressah Education Board has informed the election commission that the PMEB, after President Ordinance promulgation on August 18, 2001, would be the only authority to decide the matter in this regard.
Later, the CEC wrote a letter to PMEB who constituted a seven members committee comprising of three Ulema, three scholars and one expert including Dr Khalid Alvi (Chairman) and members are Maulana Obaidullah Ashrafi (Lahore Jamia Ashrafi), Maulana Zakir Hussain Siyalvi (Rawalpindi), Mufti Abdul Qavi (Multan), Dr Muzaffar Mehmood Qureshi (Islamabad), Dr Muhammad Mian Siddique (Co-ordinator), Dr Qazi Masoomur Rehman. The committee will have to look into religious seminary affairs and degrees validity of affiliated seminaries.
Mufti said about 11 seminaries have applied for their degrees validation with PMEB but the committee could have to decide the validation of only one degree of Lahore Maudoodi International Islamic Institute and declared their degree of "Shahadat-e-Aliyia" equal to BA.
The authentication, validation of degrees of rest of seminaries was in process, he maintained. However, he did not mention a due date for deciding degree validation of various religious seminaries.
Meanwhile, the meeting of curriculum wing of federal ministry of education has begun today in Islamabad, which would continue till January 22 to decide whether financial assistance to religious seminaries is released or bear their utility expenditures.
Earlier the ministry had allocated Rs 11,824 million for 8,000 religious seminaries to compensate their running utility expenditures but a few seminaries raised objections and demanded for freeing their utility bills from payment instead of awarding them cash.