Pak court issues Notices to leaders on educational qualifications

The Supreme Court sent the notices on a petition by a private lawyer seeking the disqualification of 65 members of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a six-party Islamic alliance.

MMA is engaged in a standoff with the government over the powers of military President Pervez Musharraf -- a key ally of the United States in its war on terror.

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The MMA wants Musharraf to resign as army chief and seeks a reversal of constitutional changes which undermine parliament.

The lawyer, Aslam Khaki, has argued that the degrees held by MMA members from Islamic seminaries were not equivalent to graduate degrees, the minimum qualification set for those contesting the 2002 national elections.

The Supreme Court said Friday it would hear the petition at a later date and sent notices to all the respondents.

Khaki has also mounted a separate legal challenge in the Supreme Court against a decision to impose sharia, or traditional Islamic law, in a northwestern province controlled by the MMA. The court adjourned the case Thursday for two weeks.

Khaki has called the Islamic bill passed by the assembly of North West Frontier Province unconstitutional.

Critics say the sharia law, passed by the assembly last week, and other Islamization steps already adopted or in the pipeline, are reminiscent of the policies of the hard-line Taliban overthrown in neighboring Afghanistan in late 2001.