The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Thursday issued notices to Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry in a petition seeking his disqualification. A single bench of IHC comprising Chief Justice Athar Minallah heard the petition and issued notices to Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and secretary Ministry of Law and Justice, besides Fawad, and directed them to submit their responses within two weeks.
During the hearing, the petitioner's lawyer adopted before the court that the minister had concealed his assets while submitting his nomination papers to the ECP and he should be disqualified under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution. He added that Fawad did not declare land he owns in Jhelum and therefore, he is not Sadiq (truthful) and Ameen (trustworthy).
Justice Athar asked which person is 'Sadiq and Ameen'. Such political cases should be resolved on political forums, he added. The lawyer argued that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Jahangir Tareen was disqualified on the same ground to which the Chief Justice said that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's (PML-N) Khawaja Asif was also disqualified by IHC, but later he was reinstated by the Supreme Court.
The petitioner, an anchor for a private TV channel, claimed in his petition: "That Respondent No. 1 (Fawad Chauhdry), with mala fide intention and ulterior motives, concealed his assets, cost of assets and provided wrong & false statement of his own and spouses' assets and their cost in FORM-B (statement of assets and liabilities) along with nomination papers," said the petition.
It prayed to the court to disqualify the minister under Article 62 (1) (f) from holding public office as he had not disclosed documents containing his proprietary information. It also requested the court to order lodging of a criminal case against him and withdrawal of all privileges granted to him as a minister. Besides Fawad, the petitioner also made the ECP, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and others as respondents in his petition.