A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali heard the petition of Ghulam Sarwar Khan. The bench withdrew its decision of July 18, 2013.The apex court restored Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Member of the National Assembly Ghulam Sarwar Khan.
The Supreme Court had suspended the membership of Ghulam Sarwar Khan in the fake degree case but the Lahore High Court (LHC) had given the decision in his favour.The SC bench in its ruling said that the LHC had given the decision in favour of Ghulam Sarwar Khan regarding his degree and there was no justification in depriving voters of NA-53 of their representative, so this bench restored his membership of the National Assembly.
Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamli in his remarks said that the hearing should be conducted on the authority of matters brought before the Supreme Court through suo moto.He said an MP would face the cases throughout his tenure if any voter was allowed to appear directly in the court. Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali forwarded the matter to Chief Justice to form a larger bench for hearing.
It is to be mentioned here that the Supreme Court suspended the National Assembly membership of Ghulam Sarwar Khan for allegedly holding fake degree on July 18, 2013.The academic credentials of Ghulam Sarwar Khan were challenged in the Supreme Court by the petitioner, Raja Qamar.
A three-member SC bench headed by the then chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, took the decision during its hearing of petitions pertaining to fake degrees of parliamentarians after the Higher Education Commission (HEC) submitted a report on reported cases.
The apex court suspended membership of Ghulam Sarwar Khan, who had defeated Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan from NA-53 Rawalpindi on May 11.During the proceedings, the bench was informed by the HEC that the syndicate of Bahawalpur University had delayed issuance of decision over the status of Ghulam Sarwar’s degree.
The HEC report showed that the syndicate had claimed in its initial report that Ghulam Sarwar’s degree was bogus because it had been issued on the basis of a diploma issued by the Lyallpur Technical Institute.
Nevertheless, according to record, the diploma was issued to a Ghulam Sarwar, son of Hamidullah, whereas the parliamentarian’s name is Ghulam Sarwar, son of Hayat Khan.
Salman Akram Raja, the counsel for Ghulam Sarwar, had argued at that time that there was a problem in the record of the institute because the original diploma had been received from the Rawalpindi Technical Institute and had been later on merged with Lyallpur Technical Institute.
