A claim spreading on social media — that original HSC certificates are mandatory for chairman candidates and SSC certificates for member candidates in union parishad (UP) elections — is entirely false. The Election Commission has issued no such decision or notification.
The claim, attributed to the Election Commission secretary, spread widely on social media, along with a purported newspaper clipping headlined “Educational qualifications set for UP chairman and member posts,” which added to the confusion. A July 28 post on a Facebook page called “Md Mohiuddin” spread widely, drawing thousands of reactions and hundreds of comments and shares; many users backed the claim while others questioned it.
A check found that no mainstream media had reported any such Election Commission decision, and the commission’s website carried no notification or directive making SSC or HSC certificates mandatory for UP chairman or member candidates. A review of the 2009 Local Government (Union Parishad) Act found no such provision either; under section 26, no minimum educational qualification is required to contest the UP chairman post.
On July 22, however, a national daily reported that the High Court had issued a rule asking why a directive should not be given to make at least a bachelor’s degree mandatory for UP chairman candidates. After a preliminary hearing on the writ, the court ordered the local government secretary, the law secretary and the chief election commissioner to respond within four weeks. The petitioners argued that UP chairmen perform judicial and administrative duties under the Village Court Act and that a minimum qualification was therefore needed.
Election Commissioner Md Anwarul Islam Sarkar said the commission had not yet taken any decision on setting educational qualifications for the UP chairman post, and that any decision would be made after reviewing the High Court rule, existing law, the laws of neighbouring countries and past court directions. Under the law now in force, submitting original HSC or graduation certificates for the chairman post, or SSC certificates for the member post, is not mandatory — making the claim spread in the commission’s name entirely false.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report