ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court judge Justice Ayesha A Malik on Wednesday observed that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Faisal Vawda submitted his expired foreign passport to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) as proof of renunciation of his United States nationality.

She made the observation being part of a three-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial and comprising Justice Mansoor Ali Shah who was hearing Faisal Vawda’s appeal against his life-long disqualification in the dual nationality case.

During the course of proceedings, Waseem Sajjad counsel for Faisal Vawda argued that the Returning Officer (RO) satisfied himself after reviewing the canceled American passport.

The returning officer had seen Vawda’s canceled passport, he added.

At this, Justice Ayesha Malik remarked that the canceled passport upon which the counsel was relying expired in 2015 and was shown to the RO in 2018.

“When someone gets a new passport, the older one was stamped as canceled,” Justice Ayesha observed.

She asked how could a canceled passport be evidence of renouncing nationality.

“The passport numbers of the one on record and the one canceled are different,” she said and added that it was evident by different numbers that a new passport was issued after being long overdue.

Upon this, Chief Justice Bandial said that the issue had become very serious.

Justice Mansoor Ali Shah said that another lie of Faisal Vawda had been exposed.

Advocate Waseem Sajjad said that the text of the affidavit which his client had submitted at the time of the filing of his nomination papers for a National Assembly constituency elaborated that the PTI leader did not hold the passport of another country.

Justice Ayesha remarked that the registration number of the passport on record differs from the one which was canceled, which showed a new travel document was issued.

Justice Mansoor said that the affidavit was about ascertaining the dual nationality of a candidate.

To this, the counsel said that the ECP did not have the authority to disqualify a person for life.

Justice Mansoor responded that the high court did have the authority to disqualify an individual for life.

Subsequently, the court adjourned the hearing of the case till date in office as Faisal Vawda’s counsel sought more time from the court for preparation.