PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the provincial government, seeking its response to a petition against the replacement of the governor with the chief minister as the chancellor of public sector universities in the province.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah and Justice Wiqar Ahmad issued the order after holding preliminary hearing into lawyer Owais Ahmad’s petition for declaring illegal and unconstitutional the KP Universities (Amendment) Act, 2024, through which the KP Universities Act, 2012, was amended in Dec last year.

The petitioner claimed that the impugned amendment was based on mala fide and nefarious designs, which would not only deteriorate the education system and quality of education in the province but was also susceptible to the risk of political interference in the academic, administrative and policy decisions of the universities in the province.

He also requested the court to restrain the chief minister from exercising any powers of the chancellor under the impugned Act.

Petitioner insists move will render varsities vulnerable to political interference

The respondents in the petition are the provincial government through its chief secretary and the secretaries of the law and higher education departments.

Advocates Lajbar Khan Khalil and Jehanzeb Mehsud appeared for the petitioner and said that the provincial government had made certain amendments to the KP Universities Act, 2012, through the impugned Act, granting the role and powers of the governor as the chancellor of all government universities in the province to the chief minister.

They said that the act amounted to “interference in the transactions and performance of universities and to interfere in their autonomy.”

The lawyers argued that the impugned law was against the spirit, object, aim and preamble of the KP Universities Act, 2012, as far as the independence and autonomy of the universities and their functions were concerned.

They said that certain provisions of the Universities Act, 2012, conferred powers on the governor as a chancellor that were exercisable on the recommendations of the provincial government and chief minister.

The counsel claimed that the working between the chief minister and the governor as a chancellor as was laid down in the original law was a check and balance between a political and a neutral person-chancellor.

They argued that the impugned Act was not in alignment with the objectives such as ensuring good governance, management, transparency and accountability in the universities as was provided in the parent law.

The lawyers pointed out that the impugned law was wrongly classified as a money bill despite having no financial implications.

They added that Article 73(2) of the Constitution declared that a money bill must exclusively relate to taxation, borrowing, expenditure, or other financial matters.

The counsel claimed that by wrongly categorising the Universities (Amendment) Act, 2024, as a money bill, the provincial assembly intentionally deprived the governor of his constitutional right to return the bill for reconsideration under Article 116 of the Constitution.

They added that Article 116(2) of the Constitution allowed the governor to return a bill for reconsideration unless it was a money bill.

The lawyers insisted that higher education fell within the domain of the Federal Legislature as per Entry 12 of the Fourth Schedule to the Constitution.

They added that in cases where both federal and provincial legislations existed on a subject falling within the Federal Legislative List, the federal law should prevail, rendering the impugned amendment ultra vires.

The counsel pointed out that the amendment to Section 9(1) of the Universities Act constituted an unlawful encroachment on the legislative and executive authority of the federal government.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2025