Justice Nasir Saeed Sheikh of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday dismissed petitions challenging the process for appointment of vice chancellors (VC) to six public sector universities and a “VC search committee” doing the appointments in the varsities.
Dismissing the petitions, the court held that the search committee tasked with appointing vice chancellors had been formed according to the law and was making appointments on merit.
On June 14, the court had reserved its verdict after hearing arguments from both parties.
The petitions were filed by Dr Hassan Amir Shah, professor of physics at the Government College University, Lahore, and five others assailing the constitution of the search committee, saying there were no rules, regulations and policy guidelines for selection and appointment of its members and thus the committee lacked the legal basis to select VCs for public universities.
They pointed out the search committee members were neither highly qualified nor experienced to assess the candidates.
They alleged that the search committee lacked the legal basis and a credible mechanism to judge applicants and was liable to be set aside.
They also claimed that being eligible as per the criteria laid down in the advertisement published by the Punjab government on Jan 19, they also applied for the posts.
However, they said, the search committee later changed the criteria and invited only those candidates qualified from a list of top 500 foreign universities.
The petitioners pleaded that their exclusion from the selection process was discriminatory and illegal as the reported selection of 500 top foreign universities by the search committee was arbitrary and had no basis in fact or in law.
Earlier, provincial law officers arguing the case submitted before the court that 255 people had applied for the posts of vice chancellors but only 84 applicants were short-listed for interview and the petitioners did not qualify.
