PESHAWAR, July 11: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday waived the condition to produce domicile certificates for admission to intermediate classes in the province for a year.

A bench comprising Justice Mian Fasihul Mulk and Justice Yehya Afridi directed the provincial higher education department to inform local colleges not to seek domicile certificates at the time of admission this year.

The directions were issued during the hearing into a petition against the current procedure of issuing domicile certificates in the province.

Former general secretary of Peshawar High Court Bar Association Mohammad Essa Khan had filed the petition, saying the current procedure to grant domicile had created problems for those seeking admission to colleges.

The bench ordered the provincial home department to file written reply to the petition with the next 15 days and adjourned the hearing after summer vacations in September.

Section officer (litigation) of the higher education department Bukhari Shah told the bench that there existed no law under which colleges had been seeking production of domicile certificates for admission.

He said there was a pre-Partition ‘Education Code, 1935’ under which a joint admission committee for the province had been formed and that committee had recommended the production of domicile certificates by students at the time of admission to intermediate classes in government colleges.

Mr Shah said educational boards in the province, too, asked for domicile certificates while registering students for examinations.

The bench declared to waive the said condition for a year.

The petitioner said he had challenged the new procedure to grant domicile insisting it had stressed out students.

“The preparation of domicile has now become an uphill task. In previous years, domicile forms were available on the market that had to be attested first by a gazetted officer and the nazim of the relevant union council and then by the district officer revenue,” he said.

The petitioner, however, said under the changed procedure, a student had to visit the deputy commissioner’s office for getting a domicile form before seeing several revenue officers, including patwaris, gardawars and tehsildars, and the deputy commissioner for verification.