PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has issued a show cause notice to the vice-chancellor of the Islamia College University Peshawar for not following its order about the appointment of a senior faculty member.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Waqar Seth and Justice Abdul Shakoor directed Vice-Chancellor Prof Habib Ahmad and other respondents, including dean of the Faculty of Religion and Legal Studies Dr Nisar Mohammad, to formally respond within a fortnight to a contempt petition filed by Associate Professor Dr Hussain Farooq of the ICU department of Islamic Studies.

Ijaz Khan Sabi, lawyer for the petitioner, said his client had applied for the post of Professor of Theology, ICU, in response to an advertisement issued by the university.

He said after the scrutiny committee met on June 22, 2016, and Nov 22, 2016, his client was declared eligible for the post and he was called for interview on Aug 12, 2018 but in a surprise move on Aug 12, 2018, the selection board ordered the re-advertising of the post without citing any reason.

The lawyer said the high court, acting on his client’s plea against the board’s move, directed the respondents, including the vice-chancellor, dean and registrar, on Jan 10, 2019, to consider him for the appointment in question in light of the scrutiny committee’s recommendations by passing an explicit order within one month.

He said though the judgment was passed in presence of the university’s representative, his client provided copies of the judgment to respondents for compliance, but to no avail.

The lawyer insisted that the respondents were willfully not obeying the court’s order and therefore, they had exposed themselves to be prosecuted under the Contempt of Court Ordinance.

He requested the court to initiate contempt proceedings against the respondents for not implementing the court’s judgment and said if they were found guilty of contempt, they should be punished accordingly.

The lawyer said the conduct of the respondents, including the vice-chancellor, amounted to committing contempt of the court under Article 204 of the Constitution and sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2019