Governor, GCU VC issued notices in appointments case

LHC verdict in favour of search committee appealed.

LAHORE:

A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Wednesday issued notices to Punjab governor and the newly appointed vice chancellor of the Government College University Lahore in intra court appeals against dismissal of petitions challenging appointment of vice chancellors to six public universities in the Punjab and the composition of search committee.

The bench issued the order on appeals by Dr Hassan Amir Shah, Dr Yousaf Hayat, Dr Shaukat Ali and Dr Maqbool Hussain Sial.

A single bench comprising Justice Nasir Saeed Sheikh had on June 24 dismissed several petitions against the process and declared that the search committee had been acting lawfully.

On Wednesday, counsel for the petitioners, Anwar Kamal, filed an application and sought permission from the bench to make the governor and the GCU VC Khaliqur Rehman parties in the case.

The bench headed by Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry allowed the application and issued notices to both respondents for August 15.

Besides other grounds in the appeals, the petitioners had pleaded that the Higher Education Department did not have any role in selecting VCs, under the applicable statutory regime or Rules of Business of the Punjab government.

They said that the single judge had not exercised the discretion vested in him in accordance with the law laid down by the superior courts. They said that the single bench (judge) had erred in law in dismissing the petitions. They requested the court to accept the appeals and set aside the June 24 order of the single bench.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2011.