LAHORE: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar on Saturday directed the Punjab government to fill vacant slots of vice chancellors at public sector universities.

The chief justice asked Punjab Advocate General (AG) Ahmad Awais to convey the court’s direction to the newly established government in the province and submit a report within two months.

The chief justice also dismissed an application of Dr Uzma Qureshi requesting the court to withdraw an earlier order about her removal as vice chancellor of Lahore College for Women University and allow her to tender a resignation instead.

OFFICIAL RESIDENCE: The court directed AG Ahmad Awais to amicably settle a matter regarding official residence of former president retired justice Rafiq Tarar. Mr Tarar had filed a petition challenging a notice issued to him by the provincial government for vacating his official residence.

However, the AG told the court that the notice had already been withdrawn by the government.

CJP Nisar directed the law officer to personally look into the matter and reach a settlement between the parties. He observed that Mr Tarar was a former president of the country and a retired justice so the government should respect him.

CJP Nisar also restrained the government from taking any action in the matter without prior permission of the court.

PENSION: The Supreme Court allowed an appeal of the Punjab government challenging a federal government notification regarding provision of full pension benefits to three judges of Lahore High Court despite having less than five-year service.

Additional Advocate General Shan Gull argued before the court that only those judges were entitled to full pension benefits who served the high court for at least five years. However, he said the federal government under a special concession granted full pension benefits to former judges of the LHC, including Rauf Ahmad Sheikh, Rustam Ali Malik and Khan Riazuddin Ahmad, who served for less than five years.

The court allowed the appeal and set aside the impugned notifications of the federal government.

JOURNALIST’S MURDER: The court gave another six weeks to Sialkot police to arrest the prime suspect involved in the murder of a local journalist of Sambrial.

Earlier, the Sialkot district police officer told the court that serious efforts were being made to arrest the suspect who had escaped abroad. A police team had travelled to Dubai to arrest the suspect but he fled to South Africa from there. The officer sought more time to arrest the culprit.

Zeeshan Butt of daily Nawa-i-Waqt was allegedly shot dead by Imran Aslam Cheema, chairman of a union council. Other suspects, including Shahid Abbas, Saqlain and Shahid, were already arrested by police.

PLAGIARISM: A Punjab University committee formed on the directions of the Supreme Court submitted its sealed report to the CJP about alleged plagiarism by its Law College Principal Dr Shazia Qureshi.

In its report, the committee recommended referring the matter to a standing committee of the Higher Education Commission. The chief justice directed the committee to hand over its report to Dr Qureshi as well asking the latter to file her objections over it.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2018