LAHORE: None of the four universities’ acting vice-chancellors has relinquished the charge despite nomination of provisional VCs by the Lahore High Court as a stop-gap arrangement.

There is also a lot of confusion in seven public universities in Punjab about the powers and functioning of the VCs as their regular appointment has been pending for over a year.

In the latest development, the Punjab still seems buying time by taking a plea that it has yet to receive the attested copy of the LHC division bench order.

“We have not yet received the copy of the order regarding appointment of provisional VCs in four institutions - Punjab University (PU), Lahore College for Women University (LCWU), University of Sargodha and Nawaz Sharif University, Multan,” Punjab Higher Education Minister Raza Ali Gilani told Dawn on Wednesday.

To a question whether any ambiguity in the LHC order was making the Punjab government reluctant to implement it, Mr Gilani said: “The government cannot remove VCs on verbal order. Let the order come in writing and we will implement it.”

The spokespersons for both PU and LCWU said their VCs would follow instructions of the Punjab Higher Education Department.

Earlier, the Punjab government had filed an appeal in the LHC against its single bench order on appointment of VCs in the four varsities, 16 days after the verdict that required it to replace the current acting VCs with senior most professors at the respective varsities within seven days.

The LHC division bench headed by Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah on Monday last had ordered appointing Dr Zafar Moeen Nasar as provisional VC for PU, Dr Rukhsana Kausar for LCWU, Dr Ishtiaq Ahmad for University of Sargodha and Dr Muhammad Zubair for Nawaz Sharif University of Engineering and Technology, Multan.

The bench, in the case of other seven public sector universities, ordered that the VCs already appointed there through notifications issued on Aug 27, 2015, shall provisionally act as vice chancellors till final disposal of the instant appeal.

Saad Rasool, counsel for the petitioner against the appointment of acting VCs, told Dawn that the government had no legal point in delaying the replacement of acting VCs - Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran (PU), Prof Uzma Qureshi (LCWU), Prof Nazra Sultana (Sargodha university) and Prof Fazal Ahmad Khalid (Nawaz Sharif university) with the new provisional VCs appointed by the LHC with the consent of the provincial government.

“The Punjab government cannot even file an appeal against the division bench decision in the Supreme Court as it has given its consent for appointing provisional VCs,” he said.

Advocate Rasool further said that as an additional advocate general of Punjab was present in the court when verdict was announced and it was an “open court decision”, the government did not require any “written order” (of the court) to implement it. “The verbal and written order of the court are not different,” he said and added that any act of the acting VCs after the court’s Dec 19 order would be illegal.

On the other hand, important administrative and academic business at all 11 public sector varsities has come to a halt as the regular VCs of seven varsities - Fatima Jinnah Women University Rawalpindi, Government College University Lahore, University of Education Lahore, Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan, Ghazi University Dera Ghazi Khan, Government Sadiq Degree College Women University Bahawalpur, Khawaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology Rahim Yar Khan - who were appointed for four-year tenure earlier, have become ‘provisional’ after the division bench’s order. Even the acting VCs of other four varsities are reportedly not performing their administrative work following the verdict.

Both the faculty as well as administration are clueless about holding important meetings of statuary bodies like Syndicate, academic council and taking any administrative decisions.

It is also not clear what would be the fate of the decisions taken by the “provisional” VCs of the seven universities after the division bench’s verdict which they had taken as regular incumbents.

Published in Dawn December 22nd, 2016