Disqualification of Dar from Senate sought

A disqualification reference was filed against Pakistan Muslim League-nawaz (PML-N) senator Ishaq Dar with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday. The petitioner, Azhar Siddique, filed the reference requesting the commission to disqualify the former finance minister as a member of the Senate. He said a court declared the opposition senator-elect as a defaulter in the case of appointment of columnist Atta ul-haq Qasmi as the managing director of state-run Pakistan Television Corporation. The Senate chairman is bound to send a disqualification reference to the Commission under Article 63 of the Constitution but he has failed to do so, he lamented. Siddique pleaded with the body to disqualify Dar. Dar, who is in self-exile since 2017, was elected in absentia as a senator on a technocrat seat from Punjab in March 2018 but did not take oath due to his stay in London. The Supreme Court disqualified him from office in July 2017 after an investigation into the undisclosed wealth of now-deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family.