The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday adjourned until June 13, hearing of a petition challenging the process of appointment of six public-sector universities’ vice chancellors (VC) and composition of a search committee for finding right people for appointment as VCs.
Justice Nasir Saeed Sheikh was hearing six petitions filed by Government College University (GCU) Physics professor Dr Hassan Amir Shah and others on which the Punjab governor as chancellor of the universities has been made a respondent.
The petitioner, through his counsel Anwar Kamal, questioned the composition of the search committee submitting that there were no rules, regulations and policy guidelines for selection and appointment of its members and the committee lacked the authority to select the VCs.
Hassan pointed out that none of the search committee members held a PhD or teaching experience. He said that the academic credentials of committee members supposed to interview highly-qualified VC candidates raised serious credibility issues.
The GCU professor said that the Punjab government, through an advertisement on January 19, had invited applications for posts of VCs of six public-sector universities of Punjab. He said that he also applied for the post of GCU VC, being eligible according to the criteria laid down in the advertisement.
The petitioner said that initially, a candidate for the post was required to have a PhD degree in any subject from a reputed university, but later, the search committee changed the criteria and invited only foreign qualified candidates. He said that interview call letters were only issued to candidates holding a PhD degree from a list of top 500 universities of the world. Hassan said that the candidates holding PhD degrees from Pakistani universities were not called in for an interview and he being holder of a PhD degree from the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, was also not considered for the position.
The petitioner submitted that exclusion of his name from the selection process was discriminatory and illegal. He argued that the reported selection of foreign graduates by the search committee was arbitrary and had no legal authority. Hassan said that the university rankings changed every year and selecting candidates from top 500 universities of today was not a valid criterion and tantamount to a retrospective application of classification.
