PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday struck down the removal of the dean of the University of Peshawar’s numerical and physical sciences faculty and the appointment of his successor by declaring the move illegal.

A bench consisting of Justice Abdul Shakoor and Justice Syed Arshad Ali issued a short order of accepting the petition of Prof Yaseen Iqbal against the Dec 30, 2022, notification by the higher education secretary to remove him as the dean of numerical and physical sciences and a Jan 2 notification by a UoP assistant registrar for the appointment of another professor as his successor.

The petitioner had requested the court to declare the two impugned notifications as illegal and issued with ulterior motives.

He had also requested the high court to stop the respondents including the provincial government from interfering in the autonomy of UoP and also from transgressing upon the authority of its senate, which has the powers to remove a dean.

Prof Iqbal had challenged his de-notification, successor’s appointment

The two notifications said the governor, as the chancellor of the university, de-notified Prof Yaseen Iqbal as the dean of the UoP’s numerical and physical sciences on the advice of the chief minister under Article 105 of the Constitution.

The governor appointed Prof Qamruz Zaman of the department of statistics as the dean of the numerical and physical sciences for a period of three years.

The respondents in the petition were the UoP through its registrar, UoP vice-chancellor, the provincial government through its chief secretary, the secretary of higher education, and Prof Zaman.

The petitioner’s counsel, Saifullah Muhib Kakakhel, contended that the post of his client was tenure-based for three years and he was appointed dean on Oct 20, 2021, until his retirement i.e. June 29, 2023.

He argued that the university’s senate had authority to remove the dean but the petitioner was removed by the governor with a single stroke of pen without following the relevant procedure and law.

The lawyer contended that the governor and chief minister trespassed the jurisdiction of the UoP’s Senate by illegally interfering in their autonomy.

He said removal of dean was an interference of political bodies in the autonomy of the university wherein the political personalities wanted to accommodate their favourite person.

Mr Kakakhel contended that the government and administration were annoyed with the petitioner due to his principled stance on different issues so he was targeted and de-notified without assigning any cogent reason.

He said that the appointment of Prof Zaman after the de-notification of the petitioner was also illegal on the ground that as per Schedule III of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities Act, 2012, a proper procedure had been laid down and it had not been followed.

The counsel for the respondents, including the UoP, insisted that the governor, as the chancellor of the university, was competent to replace the petitioner.

When the bench asked if the petitioner was given the opportunity of personal hearing on the matter, the counsel replied in negative.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2023