PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday ordered the higher education department to rescind notification for the removal of Gomal University Vice- Chancellor Prof Iftikhar Ahmad for being issued despite its restraining order.

A bench consisting of Justice Roohul Amin Khan and Justice Syed M Attique Shah ordered the production of the notification cancellation order on July 14 andadjourned until then the hearing into the petition of Prof Iftikharagainst the government for sending him on forced leave.

It also accepted an apology tendered by the higher education department’s officials for issuing that notification.

The officials said they tendered an unconditional apology for the inadvertent action taken against the petitioner.

Senior lawyer Qazi Mohammad Anwar appeared for the petitioner and said the higher education department had committed the contempt of court by removing Prof Iftikhar from the position of the vice-chancellor despite the court’s restraining order.

Accepts apology of officials on matter

The high education department’s deputy secretary (litigation) and assistant director (litigation) submitted an unconditional apology for the action against the petitioner.

On April 22, Gomal University VC Prof Iftikhar was sent on forced leave for a period of 90 days by Governor Shah Farman, who is the chancellor of public sector universities in the province, under Section 12(8) of the University Act, 2012.

The VC challenged the order of the governor in the high court and requested the court to restrain the respondents, including the governor and HED, from taking any adverse action against him.

Qazi Mohammad Anwar said the government, in sheer violation of the court’s restraining order, removed the petitioner from his post on May 25 through a notification.

Besides the governor’s earlier order of sending him on forced leave, the petitioner also challenged the May 16 decision of the provincial cabinet to upgrade the Gomal University’s Faculty of Agriculture as the full-fledged Agriculture University.

The petitioner said a university by the name of the Agriculture University, DI Khan, had already been functioning with its name placed in Serial No 12 of the Schedule of the KP University Act, 2012, and therefore, no new university with the same name could be created.

He said he wrote to the prime minister on Mar 18 about flaws in the government’s that decision ‘in good faith and in the best interest of the university’.

The VC said the governor, in his capacity as the chancellor of the university, sent him on forced leave for a period of 90 days for opposing and criticising the government’s decision.

He contended that the governor couldn’t issue the impugned order without the advice of the provincial cabinet under Article 105 of the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2021