MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) High Court stopped the University of Poonch, Rawalakot on Tuesday from recruiting employees against around 150 recently-advertised posts.

The interim order was passed by Chief Justice Ghulam Mustafa Mughal, after taking up a petition by senior lawyer Raja Sajjad Ahmed Khan.

In the petition, Khan had challenged induction process in the region’s public sector universities and medical colleges. The court has sought objections from the university by August 5.

Khan, who is a former vice chairman AJK Bar Council, contended in his petition that the AJK government had introduced a quota system to provide equal opportunities to all AJK nationals from all administrative units in its services.

This system was being strictly adhered to in almost all government and semi-government departments and institutions.

However, in the recently established universities – University of Poonch, Rawalakot (UPR), AJK Women University (AJKWU) and Mirpur University of Science and Technology – along with three medical colleges in Muzaffarabad, Mirpur and Rawalakot, the system was not being followed, he said.

The petitioner alleged that the heads of all aforementioned institutions were appointed by concerned authorities, without following the laws, only to ensure the appointment of their favoured candidates.

This objective, the petitioner continued, was being successfully achieved, as almost all the appointments in these institutions had so far been made without determining quota and merit.

“It is also a matter of judicial importance that most of the incumbents are not qualified for the post they are holding, while many appointments have been made even without the creation of concerned posts,” he said.

“The prevailing practices in these institutions are the worst manifestation of regional and clan-based favouritism, and are spearheaded by nobody less than the president, the prime minister and some cabinet members of the state,” Khan continued to allege.

Therefore, he added, all the affairs of these institutions, including the appointment of their staff, are liable to scrutiny by a commission, appointed by the AJK High Court, in order to ascertain the transparency maintained by the people at the helm.

The petitioner also placed a University of Poonch, Rawalakot advertisement from June 6 on the record, in which applications were invited for certain posts, without the determination of a quota.

Similarly, he stated that the AJKWU had clandestinely made certain appointments without the determinations of the quota and observance of the due process.

The petition pled that the court should summon the entire record of the appointments in AJKWU.

The respondents should be strictly directed to adhere to the system in all universities, colleges and other government and semi-government institutions, he said.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2014