LAHORE: The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has ruled that an equivalence certificate issued by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) does not automatically confer a right to university admission. It maintains that autonomous educational institutions retain the independent authority to set their own academic prerequisites.

A three-member bench comprising Justice Aamer Farooq, Justice Muhammad Karim Khan Agha and Justice Syed Arshad Hussain Shah dismissed a petition filed by a candidate, Altaf Hussain, against a 2019 intra-court appeal judgment of the Lahore High Court (LHC).

The petitioner had applied for admission to the MPhil at the Punjab University based on an MBA degree of the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU).

Although he passed the GAT-General and university admission tests, the PU denied him admission because his AIOU degree comprised 20 courses totaling 60 credit hours whereas the PU criteria required 25 courses with 75 credit hours.

Advocate Sheraz Zaka argued on behalf of the petitioner that the HEC, as the competent statutory authority, had issued an equivalence certificate for his degree. He contended that under Article 143 of the Constitution, the federal statutory equivalence overrides provincial university requirements and that the university could not sit in judgment over an HEC determination.

On the other hand, PU counsel Saad Rasool argued that equivalence and admission eligibility were distinct. He said the HEC certified general degree comparability while universities retained statutory autonomy to impose programme-specific eligibility prerequisites, such as minimum credit hours. He asked the FCC to dismiss the petition and uphold the high court’s decision.

The judgement, authored by Justice Shah, observed that the HEC’s own equivalence certificates explicitly stated that granting admission rested solely with the admitting university. It said that the HEC equivalence established general academic comparability, but did not not override a university’s authority to enforce uniform, non-discriminatory credit-hour requirements for specialised postgraduate study.

The FCC rejected the petitioner’s argument regarding a conflict between federal and provincial statutes, finding no statutory overlap or contradiction in the university enforcing its academic standards.

Finding no jurisdictional error or illegality in the LHC decision, the FCC dismissed the petition and declined leave to appeal.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2026