LAHORE, July 17: Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah has said the government will notify the appointment of the vice-chancellors (VCs) of public sector universities, which the chief minister had recommended through separate summaries to the governor but the latter rejected the same and recommended new names instead.
Talking to Dawn on Saturday, he said the chief minister had re-sent the summary regarding the appointment of three VCs early this week to the governor while setting aside his (governor`s) observations.
“Now the governor is bound to sign the summary within 10 days, otherwise the provincial government will issue the appointment notification in due course,” he said.
He said that Article 105 of the Constitution prescribes that the governor shall act on the advice of the chief minister within 10 days. “The governor is creating legal hitches merely to please his big boss,” Sanaullah added.
It may be mentioned that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had sent the summaries for the appointment of VCs at Government College University (GCU), Lahore; University of Education (UoE), Lahore; Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU), Multan; and University of Sargodha (UoS).
The governor had already approved the summary regarding appointment of vice-chancellors at Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) and Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), Rawalpindi, and posting of new VCs at these two seats of learning was notified by the higher education department on July 13.
The chief minister had recommended Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Lahore, chairman Prof Dr Akram Kashmiri, as the suitable candidate for the vice-chancellorship of the GCU, Lahore, University of Engineering and Technology`s Prof Dr Faiz-ul-Hassan for the UoE, Lahore, and Prof Dr Syed Khawaja Alqama for the vice-chancellorship of the BZU, Multan, on June 25.
All the three candidates had been placed at serial No 2 in the panel of three suitable candidates for each university by the Punjab higher education department`s search committee.
The governor/chancellor had, however, rejected all the three candidates recommended by the chief minister and instead approved the appointment of UET`s Prof Dr Muhammad Khaleeque-ur-Rehman, former Punjab University pro-VC Prof Dr Chaudhry Jamil Anwar and former BZU VC Prof Dr Muhammad Zafarullah for their appointment as vice-chancellors of GCU, Lahore; UoE, Lahore; and BZU, Multan, respectively, on July 7. The governor had also stated reasons to support his decision. He had also observed that “the Chancellor obviously is not to act as a rubber stamp and shut his eyes to comparable credentials (of candidates)”.
It may also be mentioned that Governor Sardar Latif Khosa had also returned late last month the chief minister`s advice to appoint Prof Dr Muhammad Akram Chaudhry as VC of the UoS for a second term.
He had stated that the “advice is repellent to common sense and abhorrent to conscience”. He has raised objections that there existed charges of moral turpitude against Dr Chaudhary and that he had been terminated thrice during his career. According to sources, these allegations, however, first emerged way back in 1978 and the incumbent served the public sector universities for following three decades.
Another allegation of financial corruption on the basis of a letter written by the UoS Academic Staff Association president had also fallen flat as the faculty member concerned refused to own the letter and had stated that he was in Canada for the past couple of years and had returned Pakistan incidentally after the circulation of the letter that bore his name`s initials.
It was now unclear as to whether the case of UoG vice-chancellor was pending with the chief minister or the Punjab government and would be notified along with other universities` VCs, sources told Dawn.
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