Government College University: VC stopped from starting fresh search for registrar

Petitioner says his appointment was approved.

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday restrained the vice chancellor of Government College University from initiating a fresh search for a registrar until the governor decides on the application of the top candidate thrown up in the previous search.

The court was hearing a petition from Sahibzada Faisal Khurshid, a former registrar, challenging any attempt by the university to start a new search. Advocate Ahmad Waheed Khan, representing the petitioner, submitted that his client had been the top pick of the search committee set up to recommend a candidate for the registrar’s office.

He said that the GCU Syndicate had seconded the search committee’s selection and forwarded their recommendation to the Higher Education Department, but the secretary did not issue a notification appointing the petitioner.

Khan said his client had approached the chancellor with his grievance and the chancellor had on December 10, 2011, passed an order stating that the recommendations of the search committee approved by the Syndicate must be submitted to the competent authority for final orders.

The lawyer said that despite the chancellor’s “unambiguous order”, the Higher Education Department secretary was refusing to appoint Khurshid and had now started a fresh appointment process by advertising the post of registrar in the newspapers.

Khan said that his client had also filed an application with the chancellor seeking implementation of his previous order. The application was still pending, he added.  After hearing the arguments, Justice Ijazul Ahsan observed that the chancellor had the requisite powers to pass orders on the petitioner’s application. He directed the petitioner to follow up on his application and directed the GCU vice chancellor to stop looking for other candidates till the application is decided. He then disposed of the petition.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 29^th, 2012.