ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday granted Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Balochistan President Yar Muhammad Rind permission to contest the 2018 General Election.
Dismissing the Balochistan High Court’s (BHC) decision disqualifying Rind from the polls, the court directed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to issue an electoral symbol to the PTI candidate.
A two-judge bench of the apex court heard Rind’s appeal against the BHC’s decision which had disqualified him on the grounds that he possessed a fake degree and had a murder case against him.
“I had intentionally written in the nomination papers that the PTI Balochistan president holds a Faculty of Arts (FA) degree,” Rind’s lawyer told the court.
Claiming that Rind’s previous nomination papers stated that he held a Master’s degree, his counsel added, “I made a conscious decision to not mention that.”
Further, the PTI Balochistan president’s counsel denied the chief justice’s statement that there seems to be “some dishonesty” behind the decision.
On the subject of the murder case against him, Rind’s lawyer said, “He has been granted bail in the case and I have submitted a copy of it.”
As a result, the court set aside BHC’s decision.
On Tuesday, a two-member bench of the BHC had declared that the PTI Balochistan president was ineligible to contest the election scheduled for July 25.
Rind had moved the BHC after an ECP’s appellate tribunal upheld a returning officer’s decision to disqualify him from contesting the election from NA-260 and PB-17, Naseerabad/Jhal Magsi.