in which election was graduation made conditional for the candidates
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Answer:
Before the general elections of 2002 the then military government of General Pervez Musharraf had introduced the condition of graduation or equivalent qualification for a contesting candidate.
While that condition is no longer applicable, but still lawmakers continue to be affected by it if they had in past either submitted fake degrees or had someone impersonate them in the relevant examinations.
Recent victim of the graduation condition was a member of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, Mian Ziaur Rehman, who was disqualified by a two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court on Mar 14. Mr Rehman was elected as an MPA from PK-54, Manshera II in the 2013 general elections on ticket of Pakistan Muslim League-N.
The bench comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Muhammad Younas Taheem allowed three identical writ petitions filed by some voters of the said constituency.
The petitioners had contended that Mr Rehman had been declared as returned candidate during the 2013 general elections but he was not honest, ameen, righteous, sagacious, non-profligate person within the meaning of Article 62 (1) (f) of the Constitution of Pakistan.
They stated that in 2008 general elections while filing his nomination papers Mr Rehman had declared himself as a graduate on the basis of a sanad of a religious seminary from Ghotki (Sanad-ul-Faragh Shahadatul-Alia) whereas in the 2013 general elections, he declared himself as a matriculate.
The issue of Mr Rehman not being honest and righteous continued to linger on since the holding of the general elections in 2013. First, a rival candidate had filed an election petition against him before an election tribunal on the same grounds. The election tribunal had accepted the said petition on Oct 23, 2013, and disqualified him.
Mr Rehman had moved the Supreme Court against the said judgment, which set aside the verdict of the tribunal on some technical grounds without discussing merits of the case.
The high court bench has ruled that the returned candidate in his nomination form for general elections of 2008 declared himself to be a graduate, while in the nomination form for succeeding general elections of 2013, he had declared himself as matriculate and that both these forms if juxtaposed would result in his disqualification.
For introducing the condition of graduation for candidates, amendments were made in different laws, including Representation of Peoples Act (RPA) 1976 and The Conduct of General Elections Order 2002.