A two-member Supreme Court bench will today resume its hearing on a case on the fourth extension of Prof Dr Khalid Mahmood Khan, vice chancellor of the University of Arid Agriculture, Rawalpindi.
The bench comprising of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Tariq Parvez had summoned the VC in the previous hearing to appear before the court. The court had also sent notices to the attorney general, Punjab advocate general and the Punjab chief secretary to appear before the court. The court has asked Mahmood justify why he had been holding the VC office for the last 10 years and got four extensions.
The court took a suo motu notice on the issue after Ahsan Munir filed an application to report the fourth extension to the 70-year-old VC. The applicant argued that the fourth extension was granted in violation of the university’s charter.
Earlier on Nov 30, after a preliminary hearing of the application, the court had directed Mahmood to appear before the court through his counsel after Punjab Additional Advocate General Jawwad Hassan, representing the Punjab chief secretary, had conceded before the court that the appointment was illegal and therefore the provincial government would not support it.
Quoting a recent Supreme Court decision on the petition of former National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prosecutor general Irfan Qadir, Hassan argued that no extension could be granted to an individual after the end of his four-year tenure as vice-chancellor. He also submitted that according to the rules, a person who attains the age of 65 could not be granted any further extension.
Mahmood was appointed the university’s VC in 2001 during the government of former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf, because he was a close relative of the then petroleum minister Naurez Shakoor. His third extension will end in 2012.
