LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has ordered collection of fee from students of the Dual Degree Programme of Comsats Institute of Information Technology (CIIT).

According to a press release, after a detailed hearing in the court, Justice Shahid Karim observed that in the light of the recommendations of the Senate standing committee and Public Accounts Committee and a subsequent notification by the Higher Education Commission (HEC), all petitions against CIIT, HEC and others would be liable to be set aside because most of the issues had already been resolved.

The judge further observed that since a fresh petition against the HEC and others has been filed by students enrolled in the programme challenging the HEC’s decision of Oct 28, the case would be heard again on Jan 21, 2016 in which legitimacy of the HEC notification would be looked into.

The court further allowed CIIT to collect all outstanding fees from students and ordered them to remit their fees regularly till the final decision by the court.

The court expressed dismay over the role of regulatory bodies by expressing that the HEC and PEC should have played a better role at the time when the dual programme was started in 2010.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2015