PHC moved against plan to construct new buildings on ICU campus

PESHAWAR: A citizen on Monday moved an application in the Peshawar High Court (PHC), seeking an order to stop construction of vice-chancellor of Islamia College University (ICU) residence, community centre and gym in varsity as these acts of changing the view of the historical building is illegal. Noorul Haq, a resident of Peshawar, filed the application in his main writ petition through his lawyer Abbas Khan Sangeen.

He stated that the new master plan designed to construct new buildings at the ICU was illegal and violated the KP Antiquity Act, 2016 and Unesco protocols. The petitioner submitted the new master plan designed for putting up new buildings at the ICU and stated that the construction of a residence for vice-chancellor, community centre and gym were also declared as unnecessarily in the ICU. He said that the director of Museum and Archeology had also sent a letter to the vice-chancellor and opposed the construction in the ICU.

The PHC had already admitted a writ petition for a full hearing which had challenged the massive construction at the historic Islamia College University, Peshawar, which, the petitioner believed, was violation of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Antiquity Act, 2016. A two-member bench comprising Justice Ikramullah Khan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim had on July 23 issued notices to the ICU vice-chancellor, chief minister, Culture and Archeology secretary, and Higher Education Commission chairman. They were asked to respond to the petition on the next hearing. The citizen requested the court to direct the respondents, including the vice-chancellor and provincial government not to change the historical structure, view and originality of the ICU’s building. The petitioner sought the court’s orders to declare the respondents’ acts of changing the view of the historical building illegal.

Abbas Khan Sangeen, the lawyer for the petitioner, said under the KP Antiquity Act, 2016, antiquity was any ancient product of the human activity, which had been there for more than 100 years.

He said among antiquities were historical and traditional buildings and cultural landscapes, including groups of historic or traditional buildings of high value, which formed a certain antique beauty in combination with their surroundings or environment and landscapes that had evolved in association with the modes of life or livelihoods of the people and the geo-cultural features of the region and which were indispensable to understanding the lifestyles and livelihoods of the people in any particular area of the province.

The lawyer said the government had declared the Islamia College Peshawar protected antiquity in 2013, so no changes could be made to its structure without the approval of the Archaeology Department.

He said the ICU was spread over 300 acres of land in Peshawar and had 1,089 jeribs cultivable land in Harichand, Rai Killi and Tarnab areas and 395 shops and flats in Khyber Bazaar Peshawar and Charsadda Bazaar.

The lawyer said the Islamia College’s establishment in 1913 was a personal initiative of Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum and Sir George Roos Keppel and that it had become a public sector university.

He said the University of Peshawar was founded in 1950 as an offshoot of the Islamia College with the latter being associated with the university as a constituent college. The lawyer said the college was granted the university’s status in 2008.

The lawyer said the ICU’s historical significance could be judged from the fact that Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had donated one-third of his assets to the Islamia College.

The lawyer said the administration had begun putting up new buildings for its administration block, IT block, social sciences block, library, gymnasium, and visiting faculty lodges and reconstruction of the main gate.

He added that the contractor had already dug out lawns opposite to the college’s historic Oriental Hostel and Khushal Hostel for the construction of the IT block.