ISLAMABAD – The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday referred two more cases of legislators to the police seeking criminal proceedings against them for submitting fake graduation degrees, sources in the (ECP) told Pakistan Today on Monday. They said that Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (retd) Hamid Ali Mirza referred cases of former federal minister Yar Mohammad Rind and present provincial minister of Balochistan Maulvi Abdul Samad Akhundzada to District Police Officers (DPOs) concerned for registration of FIR against them declaring their degrees fake.
The Higher Education Commission (HEC), earlier, had declared degrees of several MPs as fake. So far more then 20 cases have been referred to police for FIRs. The ECP is taking action legislators on the directives of Supreme Court for submitting fake education degrees with the ECP. The sources also said that the HEC on Tuesday sent a list of 298 parliamentarians to the ECP, who were not submitting their degrees of matriculation and intermediate. A senior ECP official revealed that the HEC had declared the degrees of 60 legislators as fake, and the ECP had already sent 20 cases of fake degree holders to the concerned police officers for launch of criminal proceedings against them.
The genesis of concerns about fake degrees dates from 2008, when doubts surfaced about the authenticity of President Zardari’s bachelor’s degree during his successful run for president. The HEC Chairman Javed Leghari said in one of his recent statements that the next move was to bring the cases against legislators to the district courts. He said he was not sure when he would have enough evidence to hand all the cases to the courts.
