Daily Times

The Supreme Court judge Justice Ayesha A Malik on Wednesday observed that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Faisal Vawda submitted his expired foreign passport to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) as proof of renunciation of his United States nationality. She made the observation being part of a three-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial and comprising Justice Mansoor Ali Shah hearing Faisal Vawda’s appeal against his lifelong disqualification in the dual nationality case. During the course proceedings, Waseem Sajjad, counsel for Faisal Vawda, argued that the returning officer (RO) satisfied himself after reviewing the cancelled American passport. The returning officer had seen Vawda’s cancelled passport, he added. At this, Justice Ayesha Malik remarked that the cancelled passport at which the counsel was relying upon was expired in 2015 and shown to the RO in 2018. She observed that when someone gets a new passport, the older one was stamped as cancelled. She asked how could a cancelled passport be an evidence of renouncing the nationality. She noted that the passport numbers of the one on record and the one cancelled were different. It was evident by different numbers that a new passport was issued after being long overdue, she added. Upon this, Chief Justice Bandial said that the issue had become very serious. Justice Mansoor Ali Shah said that another lie of Faisal Vawda had been exposed. Advocate Waseem Sajjad said that the text of the affidavit which his client had submitted at the time of the filing of his nomination papers for a National Assembly constituency elaborated that the PTI leader did not hold the passport of another country. Justice Mansoor said that the affidavit was about ascertaining the dual nationality of a candidate. To this, the counsel said that the ECP did not have the authority to disqualify a person for life. Justice Mansoor responded that the high court did have the authority to disqualify an individual for life.