ISLAMABAD – Jamshed Dasti has earned a dubious distinction: holding a total of seven degrees, all of which turned out to be either fake or invalid.
From Dera Ghazi Khan to Multan, Bahawalpur, and finally Karachi, Dasti kept presenting one qualification after another. Despite repeated warnings and multiple summons over the years, he remained unfazed—until the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) finally disqualified him from holding public office just days ago.
Barrister Zafrullah Khan, representing the complainant, presented a detailed record before the ECP. It showed Dasti’s academic troubles began early—his matriculation certificate was cancelled in 2002, followed by the invalidation of his intermediate certificate by the DG Khan Board three years later.
Undeterred, he turned to religious qualifications, obtaining a Shahadat-ul-Almia, considered equivalent to a graduation degree at the time. It allowed him to contest the 2008 National Assembly elections, but when the degree was challenged in the Supreme Court, a bench led by then Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry quizzed him on basic religious knowledge. Dasti could not answer a single question and resigned from the seat to avoid outright disqualification.
But the pursuit continued. He later acquired FA and BA degrees from Islamia University Bahawalpur, which he used to enroll in an LLB programme—only to fail his first-year exams. He nevertheless presented these degrees to contest the 2024 elections, which he won.
However, fresh investigations revealed that his FA and BA from Islamia University were also fake. When summoned by the ECP, Dasti insisted that his FA degree was genuine and even produced another certificate, supposedly from the Karachi Board. But verification brought yet another twist: the Karachi Board records listed a “Jamsheed Ahmad, son of Sultan Mahmood”, with the same birth year (1978) but a different date and month, while his legal name is Jamshaid Ahmad.
To make matters worse, the ECP also uncovered that he had concealed assets, further strengthening the case for his disqualification.
After years of evasion, Dasti’s trail of fake credentials has finally caught up with him—ending his political career, at least for now.
