Notices issued on plea against appointment of Prof Iraqi as KU VC.

KARACHI -- The Sindh High Court on Friday issued notices to provincial and federal authorities on a petition filed against the appointment of Dr Khalid Mehmood Iraqi as the vice chancellor of the University of Karachi.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro put the respondents and the federal and provincial law officers on notice for Feb 15.

Former dean, faculty of social sciences at KU, Prof Moonis Ahmar, through his counsel Haider Waheed and Shahzeb Akhtar Khan, petitioned the SHC impugning the July 28 notification regarding the appointment of Dr Iraqi as VC of KU.

The petitioner cited the province of Sindh through chief minister, universities and board secretary, Higher Education Commission (HEC), KU through its registrar, search committee and Dr Iraqi as respondents.

He submitted that currently, he was a retired meritorious professor (BPS 22) and served for over 35 years in KU and also an aspiring candidate for the post of VC.

SHC asked to direct CM, search committee to furnish reasons as to why they bypassed merit

The petitioner's counsel argued that as per the advertisement of June 29, 2019, the candidates were required to have at least 25 HEC recognised research publications by July 15, 2019 and Dr Iraqi did not possess the requisite 25 research publications as on the cut-off date.

They further submitted that the search committee had taken into consideration certain research publications of Dr Iraqi published after the cut-off date and such ground alone disentitled him from the VC appointment.

The lawyers contended that Dr Iraqi was illegally appointed as VC in violation of set precedents and procedure and before such appointment he had also illegally held the charge of acting VC for over three years.

They argued that during such period Dr Iraqi had illegally kept the charge of acting VC and engineered circumstances which delayed the appointment of the VC.

The counsel stated that the previous VC Dr Ajmal Khan had passed away on May 4, 2019 and the very next day a summary was initiated by the secretary of the universities and board department to the CM recommending Prof Dr Jamil Kazmi, who was at number seven on the seniority list, for the acting VC appointment.

They...

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