A three member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and comprising Justice Jawwad

S Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain heard a petition seeking disqualification of parliamentarians holding dual nationality here on Tuesday and suspended Malik Jamil Awan National Assembly membership due to his Dutch citizenship.

Malik Jamil Awan was elected an MNA from NA-107, Gujrat constituency.

During an earlier hearing, Awan had submitted a statement before the court claiming that there was a difference between nationality and citizenship. “I am a national of the Netherlands, but not a citizen,” he said.

The Chief Justice remarks there is an issue of nationality and citizenship and we will remove the ambiguity.

Later the court adjourned the hearing till Wednesday and hinted to complete the hearing the same day.

Mahmood Akhtar Naqvi had filed a petition, requesting to direct the ECP to obtain the complete record of parliamentarians who held dual nationalities, pleading that the court disqualify such parliamentarians and restraining them from contesting the next general elections.

Earlier, the SC had suspended the NA membership of PPP’s Zahid Iqbal and also re-issued notices to other parliamentarians for holding dual nationality.

It is pertinent to mention here that the court had already suspended the membership of Farahnaz Ispahani, MNA, spouse of Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States and Rehman Malik, former interior minister, for holding dual nationalities.

Chief Justice remarked that the Senate membership of former minister Rehman Malik had been suspended for holding dual nationality and that the court could not be discriminate in the administration of justice.

Similarly, the court on June 13, had also suspended the membership of Muhammad Ikhlaq and Amna Butter, MPAs of the Punjab Assembly, and Dr Ahmed Ali, MPA, Sindh Assembly, after they admitted to holding American and British citizenships respectively.