ISLAMABAD-The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Wednesday issued notices to respondents including the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in a petition filed by an ex-candidate of NA-249 requesting the court to become party in a petition seeking Faisal Vawda’s disqualification. 
A single bench of IHC comprising Justice Aamer Farooq conducted hearing of the petition filed by Qadir Khan Mandokhail Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader who lost the elections against Federal Minister Faisal Vawda in 2018. 
During the hearing, the IHC bench asked from the petitioner that what connection he had with Faisal Vawda’s qualification case. At this, the petitioner’s counsel said that his client had contested the elections in the said constituency and he had direct link with it. 
Then, the court issued notices to the respondents including Faisal Vawda and the ECP and sought their comments in this matter till the next date of the hearing.  
The petitioner moved the application before the court to become a party in a petition seeking disqualification of the Federal Minister for Water Resources for allegedly concealing his US nationality at the time of filing his nomination papers to contest the last general elections. 
The PPP leader Qadir Khan Mandokhail moved the application through his counsel Raja Muhammad Nazeer Advocate saying that Vawda is incompetently holding the office of Federal Minister in the cabinet since he is liable to be disqualified for filing a false affidavit in violation of the Constitution as well as the election laws. 
He stated that the applicant being a PPP candidate in NA-249 challenged the electoral process leading to the election of Vawda before the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on similar contentions as averred in this petition. 
He requested the court that the applicant be impleaded as a party in the pending petition since the rights of the applicant are directly involved in it. He adopted that the petition cannot be decided without impleading the applicant as the same is necessary because he would be directly affected by any order passed by the court.  In this matter, Mian Faisal Advocate sought the disqualification of Faisal Vawda saying that Vawda contested the elections from NA-249 (West-II) Karachi in July 2018 on a ticket of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). However, he was a dual national at the time of filing of his nomination papers, concealing his American nationality by falsely declaring on oath before the ECP that “he did not have any foreign nationality.” 
The petition, while mentioning documents of Vawda rescinding the US nationality, pointed out that the minister was a US citizen at the time of submitting his nomination papers on June 11, 2018, and even during the scrutiny of his nomination papers while the returning officer of his electoral constituency approved his papers on June 18.  The petition maintained, “It was only after this approval that respondent No 1 [Vawda] applied for renunciation of his US nationality at the US Consulate, Karachi, on June 22.” It added that the US Consulate issued the renunciation certificate to Vawda on June 25. 
Moreover, the petition stated that Vawda had on June 11, 2018 also submitted an affidavit claiming that he was not a dual national, whereas, till that time, his foreign nationality was intact. 
It mentioned, “It is held in the judgment [of Supreme Court] that if anybody files a false affidavit, it will be considered he is filing the affidavit before the Supreme Court of Pakistan.” It continued that the Supreme Court has in one of its judgments categorically directed that candidates who previously held dual nationalities should have renunciation certificates at the time of filing of nomination papers. 
The petitioner maintained that Vawda “contested the election of National Assembly while submitting false declaration and hiding his dual nationality” which makes him “liable to be disqualified under the Constitution and law of the land.”