MULTAN: The Lahore High Court (LHC) Multan bench on Monday directed the Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) administration to arrange for classes and examinations of students enrolled in its sub-campus in Dera Ghazi Khan that has been merged into Ghazi University under the Ghazi University Act 2012.

Muhammad Yahya, a student of MBA, and 278 others from the sub-campus filed a petition against officials of the two universities stating they were enrolled in BZU and were being regulated under the rules and regulations of Ghazi University. They claimed during summer vacation, the sub-campus was merged into Ghazi University wherein the property and employees subsisting against the sub-campus were transferred to Ghazi but no decision was made regarding the fate of the students.

They said they approached the authorities concerned of both universities and requested that their examination be conducted by the BZU. They added earlier their classfellows had filed a similar petition and the court had ruled in their favour on Oct 22 directing the Ghazi University to facilitate studies and BZU issue degrees to the petitioners.

Yahya and his fellows stated they were sailing in the same boat and had the same grievances, which had been redressed by Justice Ibadur Rehman Lodhi earlier on their friends’ petition.

They requested the court to direct the BZU vice chancellor and registrar to consider their case in the light of the Oct 22 direction and the Ghazi University vice chancellor not to force them to appear in the examination being conducted by it.

Justice Lodhi directed the BZU authorities to arrange classes for the petitioners at Government Commerce College, which was already facilitating students enrolled in the university’s distance learning programme. The court also directed BZU authorities to take the students’ examinations and issue them degrees.

The administrations of BZU and Ghazi University had challenged the court’s Oct 22 verdict.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2014