HEC refuses to accept clean chit for all lawmakers

ISLAMABAD: During the ongoing scrutiny supervised by Higher Education Commission (HEC), University of Sindh and University of Balochistan have given clean chits to all their graduate lawmakers, an outcome which the HEC has refused to accept.

According to the HEC, 105 members of the parliament and provincial assemblies claimed to obtain their BA degrees from Sindh University.-File photo

According to the HEC, 105 members of the parliament and provincial assemblies claimed to obtain their BA degrees from Sindh University, whereas 56 lawmakers said they had had their education at University of Balochistan.

"Both these universities have sent us their one-line response that each degree sent to them is genuine, which the HEC has refused to accept. The commission has asked them to repeat the entire verification exercise," said an HEC official close to the development.

The HEC formulated a special form for scrutiny of lawmakers' educational backgrounds, whereby all universities were supposed to check not only their BA degrees but also matriculation and intermediate certificates along with their computerised national identity cards. The criterion was the same for every university, and the HEC would not compromise on that, said the official.

Though the exercise was taking considerable time, the universities were largely following HEC instructions in running checks on the claims made by the lawmakers, he added.

According to the HEC, the University of Punjab tops the list as 313 legislators have claimed to have completed their graduation from that university. Next comes the University of Peshawar which is scrutinising the degrees of 110 members of parliament and provincial assemblies.

The University of Karachi has 100 of its former students in national and provincial legislatures followed by the Bahauddin Zakariya University with 50 graduates.

The Pakistan Military Academy, which also has the status of a degree-awarding institution, is verifying degrees of eight graduates. The Gomal University and Allama Iqbal Open University are investigating educational qualifications of 10 legislators each. Ten members of parliament and provincial assemblies have done their graduation from the now-defunct Al-Khair University.

The HEC is also investigating degrees of 36 legislators who have claimed to have graduated from foreign universities. Twenty-one lawmakers had contested elections on the basis of certificates issued by 10 madressah boards of the country. The HEC has already written to the boards, seeking their confirmation.

The Election Commission is yet to provide degrees of 161 legislators to the HEC for verification.