PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday suspended an order of the provincial governor to send the vice-chancellor of the Women University, Swabi, on three-month forced leave.

A bench consisting of Justice Mussarat Hilali and Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar fixed Aug 17 for the next hearing into VC Prof Shahana Urooj Kazmi’s petition, which challenged an inquiry held by the Governor’s Inspection Team (GIT) against herand the May 25, 2021, notification of her forced leave.

It ordered the suspension of that notification until the final decision on the petition.

The petitioner contended that the entire exercise of holding the so-called inquiry into her university’s affairs was tainted with mala fide.

Prof Shahana insists action against her ‘tainted with mala fide’

She said under the KP Universities Act, 2012, the GIT couldn’t undertake any inquiry into the affairs of any university.

The respondents in the petition include the provincial government through the higher education secretary, GIT through its chairman, principal secretary to the governor, WUS chancellor, and GIT secretary.

Danyal Asad Chamkani and Dr Syed Akhter Ali Shah, the counsel for the petitioner, contended that the high court had issued stay orders on identical petitions of the vice-chancellors of the Gomal University DI Khan and University of Swat suspending their forced leave notifications.

They added that their client’s case was similar to those two.

The lawyers said the petitioner had an illustrious career as an academician and her ‘outstanding merit’ led to her recommendation by a search committee for the VC’s post and the subsequent appointment by the government in Mar 2020 for a period of three years.

They said the VC, after assuming the charge, started to manage the affairs of the university in an objective manner with a focus on better governance to improve the quality of education.

The counsel said the petitioner had terminated some non-performing staff members, including those not recruited in line with the law.

They added that such terminations didn’t sit well with the vested interest, which began a vilification campaign against her.

The counsel said those elements wrote to the provincial governor, speaker of the provincial assembly, and other government functionaries levelling ‘baseless and unfounded’ allegations against their client.

They added that on Mar 24, 2021, the petitioner received a letter from the GIT’s secretary revealing that the governor, presumably acting as the chancellor of her university, had decided to task the GIT with holding an inquiry against her but that letter had no mention of the probe terms of reference.

The lawyers said in May, the petitioner learned through media reports that the JIT had found that the petitioner had committed serious irregularities and illegalities in university appointments and that she had been ordered to go on a forced leave.

They contended that the mala fide and lack of transparency in the so-called inquiry conducted by the JIT were established from the fact that neither a questionnaire was served on their client nor was she given any show cause notice.

The counsel said the vilification campaign against her was premised on the fact that she belonged to Sindh province, so she was not entitled to hold any position in KP.

They added that the petitioner was accused of appointing relatives and people from the Sindh province to the university but actually, only two of the 85 faculty members and two of 82 administrative staff members belonged to Sindh.