I find it unfortunate that most who are called pundits don't actually use puns.
Hmmm ... turns out, it's a variant spelling of "pandits".
mid 17th century (in pundit (sense 2)): from Sanskrit paṇḍita ‘learned man’, use as noun of paṇḍita ‘learned, skilled’. pundit (sense 1) is first recorded in the early 19th century.