KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Friday directed the University of Karachi to immediately discontinue its PhD in law programme until it got the approval from the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

Disposing of the petitions impugning the programme, a two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh and Justice Yousuf Ali Sayeed observed that it could not be continued as the university had failed to meet the relevant requirements and obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the HEC.

The bench also turned down the applications of various students, who had been admitted to the PhD programme and came forward as interveners during the hearings of petitions contending that their interests would be affected by the outcome of such proceedings.

However, the bench said: “If the interveners have been induced into enrolling in the programme on the basis of non-disclosure or misrepresentation on the part of the university, they remain at liberty to seek compensation by way of civil actions before the competent court having jurisdiction over the matter.”

The petitioners had approached the SHC in 2020 impugning standing of the KU to conduct a doctoral programme in the field of law on the ground that it failed to meet basic criteria prescribed by the HEC, including the quality of its faculty.

On a court directive, the HEC had submitted a programme review report in November 2021 stating that the existing infrastructure needed renovation in order to provide conducive learning environment to the students and advised the varsity to comply with the recommendations of the expert committee and address the deficiencies highlighted in the findings.

The report further stated that the relevant statuary approvals to start the LLB, LLM, and PhD programmes were available on record, but no full time/ permanent PhD faculty member was hired, which was a sheer violation of the HEC rules.

It stated that 71 students had been enrolled in PhD programme during 2014 to 2020, but the record of PhD admission tests conducted was not available in students’ files while no written test for the admission was conducted by the KU in 2020 as students were enrolled on the basis of interview only and the KU also remained unable to present any record with regard to conduct of course work and comprehensive examination of PhD.

The KU has not filed any objection in respect of the report and on the contrary, when asked, the registrar and the director (legal) acknowledged that while the findings of the HEC were relevant and applicable, the discrepancies identified in the report had existed since the inception of the programme and continued to subsist.

“Thus, while taking the report on record, we dismiss the applications of the interveners and dispose of the petitions along with the other pending miscellaneous applications, directing the university to discontinue the programme forthwith until such time as it satisfies the requirements and obtains a NOC from the HEC,” it concluded.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2023