ABBOTTABAD: The Peshawar High Court’s Abbottabad Circuit Bench has rejected petitions against the orders of the Abbottabad Public School for all day scholars to report to boarding houses immediately.

The decision came from a bench consisting of Justice Wiqar Ahmad and Justice Kamran Hayat Miankhel after the completion of hearing into 20 petitions filed by 39 schoolchildren.

The students had challenged the orders of their principal for day borders to report to the respective boarding houses in line with a decision of the board of governors.

They insisted that the orders were discriminatory, arbitrary and without lawful authority.

Rejecting the petitions, the bench ruled, “The pleas are related to a policy decision [by the school] in which the scope of the interference of this court is limited.”

It referred to a Supreme Court judgement, which, it said, declared: “Courts must sparingly interfere in the internal governance and affairs of educational institutions. It is simply prudent that the courts keep their hands off educational expertise and experience of actual day to day workings of the educational institutions.”

The circuit bench ruled that every university had the right to set out its disciplinary and others policies in accordance with the law, and unless any such policy offended the fundamental rights of the students or violates any law, interference by the courts resulted in disrupting the smooth functioning and governance of the university.

“It is best to leave the disciplinary administrative and policy matters of the universities or educational institutions to the professional expertise of the people running them, unless of course there is a violation of any of the fundamental rights or any law.”

The bench declared that it couldn’t assume the role of policy giver and substitute its own decision for the decision of BoG regarding the fact as to whether the policy of keeping day boarders should be continued or it should be halted.

It added that the BoG’s decision to restore the school as a completely residential institution wasn’t illegal, illogical, arbitrary or unreasonable, and didn’t violate fundamental rights of petitioners.

Lawyers for the school Tahir Hussain Lughmani and Malik Saeed Akhtar contended that the the school was basically a boarding school.

However, the counsel for petitioners insisted that their clients had the right to study in the school as day boarders.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2022