The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday annulled the notification for the appointment of Professor Naushad A Shaikh as Vice Chancellor of the Dow University of Health & Sciences (DUHS), and directed authorities concerned to complete the process of appointing new VC within 20 days.
The SHC bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, disposed of different petitions including those filed by the Pakistan Medical Association and Dr Saeed Qureshi.
While disposing of the petitions, the court also directed to include competent persons in a search committee which was formed to find a suitable candidate for the VC’s slot.
According to the court’s order, Acting VC Professor Dr Masood Hameed may run the routine work of the varsity but he cannot take important decisions.
The court’s order also directed the search committee to consider all 12 candidates on merit and pick three of them and send their names to the chief minister who will recommend one of them to the governor for the post of VC of DUHS.
A number of irregularities were observed in appointment of DUHS VC as the notification was issued and withdrawn many times. The matter came to the light when a search committee had forwarded a summary to the chief minister recommending Dr Qureshi as the vice chancellor, but on the same day the Sindh governor appointed Dr Shaikh as varsity’s VC.