Daily Times

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Faisal Vawda Friday challenged his lifelong disqualification in the Supreme Court.

Vawda filed an appeal with the apex court through Advocate Waseem Sajjad after rejection of his appeal by the Islamabad High Court (IHC). Last week, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) disqualified PTI leader Vawda for life from parliament for submitting a false affidavit of his dual citizenship. Vawda subsequently approached the IHC; however, his plea seeking revocation of his lifetime disqualification was dismissed by the court. In the appeal submitted to the SC, the former senator pleaded that the earlier ECP decision be annulled and his membership of the Senate be restored.

The appeal stated that the ECP did not have the power to disqualify him for life and that it was not a competent court of law.

The PTI leader has nominated ECP and the complainants who had challenged his election as a lawmaker as respondents in his apex court petition, maintaining that he didn’t hide any details from the Election Commission.

Vawda had won the 2018 general election from Karachi’s NA-249 constituency. In January 2020, an investigative report published in an English newspaper revealed that Vawda may have committed perjury by falsely declaring in an oath to the ECP that he did not hold any foreign nationality.

According to the report Vawda was an American nationality holder at the time of filing his nomination papers on June 11, 2018. The minister remained an American national even at the time the scrutiny of his nomination papers was completed.

The Supreme Court in a past judgment has categorically ruled that the candidates holding dual nationality were supposed to submit a renunciation certificate of the foreign nationality along with their nomination papers.

The same judgment has previously led to the disqualification of various lawmakers, notable among whom Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senators SaadiaAbbasi and Haroon Akhtar.