Claim: A court has disqualified Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur from his provincial assembly seat on account of a wrong declaration of his assets.
Fact: The politician has not been disqualified. After the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) initially accepted a plea for Gandapur’s disqualification, the Peshawar High Court stayed the ECP’s action.
On 12 March 2024, X (formerly Twitter) user Shabbir Wahgra (@iShabbirWahgra) claimed (archived) that a court decision had disqualified Ali Amin Gandapur from holding the provincial assembly seat over a wrong declaration of his assets.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check found the claim to be false. A Google search with the search term “Ali Amin Gandapur disqualification” led us to an article published by The Express Tribune on 13 March 2024 with the title, “ECP accepts plea for Gandapur’s disqualification.”
According to the report, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) accepted a petition, filed by Jamiat Ulema Islam’s (JUI) Kafeel Nizami, to disqualify KP’s chief minister Gandapur for misstating his property in his nomination papers. Gandapur was accused of concealing assets, and particularly of providing false information about 735 kanals of land in Dera Ismail Khan which he did not originally own. The petitioner asserted that Gandapur is no longer “Sadiq and Amin” on this basis, the report adds.
Social media users mistook the short order by an ECP bench as stating that Gandapur is not eligible for the provincial assembly seat. In fact, the short order clearly states that this is the view of the petitioner. A Facebook post by Daily Jang further confirms this, and correctly attributes the statement to the petitioner and not the judges.
The order does not declare Gandapur’s disqualification from his seat. It clearly states that a notice will be issued to Gandapur and the case will be heard on 26 March 2024.
In fact, as per a recent report by Dawn from 21 March 2024, titled “PHC stays ECP’s action on plea for Gandapur’s disqualification”, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) has “issued a stay order halting the ECP from acting on a petition for the disqualification of KP CM Ali Amin Gandapur”. As per the same report, the court also suspended an ECP notice which required Gandapur to appear before it on 26 March.
Moreover, Gandapur’s lawyers argued that since he had been declared a returned candidate from PK-113 Dera Ismail Khan in the elections and a gazette notification was issued by the ECP, the petition was incompetent and not maintainable, according to Dawn’s article. They contended that the ECP lacked jurisdiction as Gandapur had already been elected chief minister, and that election-related matters were beyond its purview post-election notification, the report added.
Additionally, the article stated, Justice Ijaz Anwar had also observed the recent Supreme Court ruling which declares that institutions do not have the authority to “declare any person sadiq and ameen” and disqualify individuals on this basis. The petitioner had pointed out that the Elections Act allows disqualification if a court declares a violation of Article 62(1)(F). However, he added that such a declaration does not exist in his case.
Hence, Soch Fact Check concludes that Gandapur was not declared ineligible for his provincial assembly seat in a decision by the ECP.
Virality:
The claim was found here, here and here on X.
Neo News Urdu (@NeoNewsUR) also posted the claim on X, which has now been deleted.
It was also posted here, here and here on Facebook.
Conclusion: Contrary to viral claims, Ali Amin Gandapur has not been disqualified. In fact, the Peshawar High Court has issued a stay order stopping the ECP from acting on a petition which sought Gandapur’s disqualification.
Backrground image in cover photo: AliAminKhanGandapurPti
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