PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has directed the University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Peshawar to respond to the petition of a professor against its eligibility criteria for promotion as a meritorious professor (BPS-22).

A bench consisting of Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Shahid Khan issued the order after a preliminary hearing into a petition of a professor of the civil engineering department, Dr Khan Shahzada, who requested it to declare that he is eligible for the award of the status of meritorious professor as per the mandate of the Higher Education Commission Statutes.

It fixed May 8 for the next hearing, directing the registrar of the UET to file comments about the petition until then.

The bench, however, declined to grant interim relief to the petitioner, who requested to suspend the promotion process until the disposal of his petition.

Petition challenges criteria for meritorious professor status

The petitioner contended that the Meritorious Professor BPS-22 Statutes, 2016, framed by the UET, were in conflict with the HEC Statutes for Promotion.

Lawyer Ziaur Rehman Tajik appeared for the petitioner and insisted that his client had completed the MS degree in earthquake engineering in 2007 and the PhD in structural engineering in 2011.

He added that the petitioner had an excellent teaching, research, and professional record, and had received several certificates for it.

The lawyer said that the petitioner was appointed a lecturer to the University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar’s Bannu and main campus in 2004 and was appointed an associate professor in BPS-20 in Jan 2013.

He added that the registrar of the university issued a notification on March 22, 2024, inviting applications for promotion and award of meritorious professor BPS-22 from the faculty members of the UET Peshawar, with the eligibility criteria mentioned in the notification.

Mr Tajik argued that the petitioner fulfilled the criteria for promotion to the notified post in line with the criteria mentioned in the HEC Meritorious Professor Statutes but was not eligible as per the criteria mentioned in the UET Peshawar’s statutes.

He contended that while the UET statutes mentioned in the eligibility criteria that the applicants should be professors who had spent at least five years in BPS-21 at the university with a PhD degree, while in the HEC statutes, the criteria was that only the professors, who had spent at least two years in BPS-21 at the university with a PhD degree.

The counsel argued that the eligibility criteria mentioned in the notification were discriminatory and a violation of Article 25 of the Constitution.

He added that his client fulfilled the eligibility criteria as per the HEC statutes, and therefore, he should be considered eligible for promotion as a meritorious professor.

Mr Tajik said that a subcommittee of the UET’s senate also recommended changes to the UET statutes in line with those of the HEC’s statutes.

He, however, said that the UET’s senate regretted amendments to the statutes in its meeting on Feb 2, 2023.

The counsel requested the court to declare discriminatory the decision of the UET’s senate against making the required changes to the statutes.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2024