Faisal Vawda challenges lifelong disqualification in Supreme Court

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senator Faisal Vawda on Friday challenged his lifelong disqualification in the Supreme Court. Vawda was disqualified by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in a dual nationality case. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday dismissed Vawda’s plea challenging his disqualification by the ECP.

Vawda has now filed an appeal in the apex court. The appeal states that the ECP did not have the power to disqualify him for life and that the electoral watchdog was not a competent court of law.

Faisal Vawda’s appeal was filed by his lawyer, Advocate Wasim Sajjad.

Earlier this month, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) disqualified Vawda as a Member of the National Assembly (MNA) and ordered him to withdraw the notification appointing him as senator for concealing his dual nationality.

Later, the PTI leader approached the IHC. In his appeal, he stated that Section 8C of the Elections Act, 2017 allowed the ECP to conduct an election but did not empower it to disqualify a candidate. According to him, the commission was directed by the court to “probe the issue of falsity or otherwise of the affidavit expeditiously as per a judgement of the Supreme Court”.