LAHORE, Dec 2: A physicist is appearing before the Search Committee on Monday (today) for interview for his selection to the coveted slot of Punjab University vice-chancellorship or otherwise despite the fact that the ‘legitimate’ selection process completed a week ago.

A top government official has intervened to arrange his interview after he missed the scheduled interviews held from Nov 22 to Nov 24, Dawn has learnt on Sunday.

Some 46 serving and former vice-chancellors (VCs) and academicians had appeared before the five-member Higher Education Commission’s Vice-Chancellors’ Search Committee between Nov 22 and 24.

According to sources in the education department, Dr Shaukat Hamid, who is a member of the Planning Commission had applied for the post but could not appear in the interviews before the Search Committee consisting of industrialist-cum-educationist Syed Babar Ali (head), former federal minister Sartaj Aziz, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, VC Muhammad Akram, Punjab Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) Najibullah Malik and provincial education secretary.

“Now on the intervention of a top government officer, his interview has been arranged for Dec 3,” the sources said.

“This is a mockery of the selection process. Once the whole process is completed, how on somebody’s intervention it can be brought back to square one,” they expressed surprise and added that this would raise a question mark on the transparency of the whole selection process.

They said that going for interview of other candidates after the due date meant that the 46 candidates who had gone through the process were not up to the mark.

ACS Najibullah Malik told Dawn that Hamid could not appear before the Search Committee because of his preoccupation. He said it was prerogative of the committee to conduct or re-conduct interviews for the purpose irrespective of specific dates.

On the basis of interviews, the committee had to shortlist the names of the candidates, conduct their detailed interviews and recommend three of them to the chief minister to select one of them for the post, he added.

Punjab University Academic Staff Association (PUASA) president Prof Mumtaz Salik told Dawn that the body did not accept the ‘legality’ of the HEC’s Search Committee. He said how could the people running private universities were authorised to choose the VC of a public sector university? “It is an insult for the people who have spent their lives in the public sector universities.”

Prof Salik said the PUASA and faculty members would not accept any ‘outsider VC’ and if the committee tried to do this, they would resist the move and not allow him to enter the campus.

He said the teachers’ body had already conveyed this demand to the chancellor and demanded that the new VC should be from among three or four senior-most PU professors. “Only a PU teacher can understand how to run the affairs of the university magnificently,” he added.

Another senior PU teacher said that since the PU had been in a grip of students’ politics, a lot more was depended on the selection of the new VC. “If the new VC had a soft corner for a particular students body, the varsity could not be de-politicised,” he maintained.