As many as 125 former parliamentarians may face disqualification to contest the upcoming general elections for failure to verify their degrees from Higher Education Commission (HEC), official sources told Business Recorder. The Supreme Court of Pakistan on April 1 in fake degrees case had set April 5 as deadline for the 183 former lawmakers to get their degrees verified and HEC was directed to issue fresh notices to these former parliamentarians.
Following the directives of Supreme Court, HEC issued public notice and directed the former parliamentarians to bring with them the certificates of Matriculation and intermediate along with bachelor degrees. Till filing this report, a total of 58 parliamentarians verified their educational credentials from HEC, while 125 parliamentarians have not yet verified their degrees.
The HEC deadline expired on Friday (April 05) at 12 pm and it was the last day for the former lawmakers to get their dubious degrees verified. According to the SC order, if the lawmakers fail to get their degrees verified within the set deadline of April 5, then their nomination papers as candidates in the May 11 elections would be rejected, as the candidates are bound to provide requisite correct information in the nomination papers.
One-time disqualification for miss-declaration would be ineligibility forever, besides action would also be taken against the former lawmakers for having provided wrong information. Degrees of PML-N leader Chauhdry Nisar Ali Khan, PPP leaders Khursheed Shah and Samsam Bukhari, and PTI leader Javed Hashmi have been cleared by the HEC.