Appointment of Prof Iraqi as acting KU vice chancellor challenged in SHC

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has issued notices to the provincial universities and boards department, University of Karachi (KU) and others on a petition against the appointment of the KU acting vice chancellor (VC), Prof Khalid Mahmood Iraqi.

Petitioners Prof Muhammad Ahmed Qadri and Prof Moonis Ahmar had submitted in the petition that Prof Iraqi was illegally appointed as the acting VC of Karachi University in violation of the set precedents and procedure.

They submitted that the acting VC was also an applicant in the ongoing but much delayed process of the appointment of a permanent VC and alleged that during his tenure as the acting VC, he took decisions that could not be taken by an acting VC and he usurped the authority of other authorities of the varsity.

The petitioners also alleged that Prof Iraqi had granted illegal benefits to some persons and used his office to grant benefits to members of the search committee constituted to search for the new VC of KU. They added that he was continuously representing himself as the VC instead of the acting VC at every forum.

According to the petitioners, the acting VC had continuously been making appointments without approval from the chief minister by chairing meetings of various selection boards and he even approved certain refer-back cases.

The petitioners submitted that most severe illegality which necessitated the acting VC’s immediate removal from the office was how he had used his office to increase his chances for the appointment as the next permanent VC of the varsity by directly influencing and giving favours to the members of the search committee.

They said one of the members of the search committee was former KU VC Dr Pirzada Qasim and the acting VC had given an illegal benefit to the former’s son Dr Danish Ahmed Siddiqui by appointing him in the Karachi University Business School.

They submitted that another member of the search committee, Dr Mohammad Qaiser, had been operating a private journal, Pakistan Journal of Botany, from the varsity under the patronage of the acting VC and that journal had nothing to do with KU as it was a completely private publication of the Pakistan Botanical Society run by Dr Qaiser from within the premises of the university for which he paid no rent.

The petitioners claimed that KU did not receive any benefit from that journal and it was a completely private enterprise of Dr Qaiser. They said the acting VC had turned a blind eye towards this issue, thereby favouring and influencing another member of the search committee to ensure that he recommended his name for the next regular VC.

The petitioners submitted that by appointing Prof Iraqi as the acting VC, the universities and boards department had overlooked principles of good governance as well as judgments and orders of the superior courts in relation to stop-gap measures by ignoring the senior most professors and not providing any reason for appointing such a junior professor to run the university.

The high court was requested to set aside the notification of My 15, 2019, whereby a junior professor was appointed as the acting VC of KU. The petitioners asked the SHC to order the appointment of an acting VC from the three senior most professors of the varsity, provided that none of them was an applicant for the post of the regular VC. The SHC issued notices to the universities and boards department, KU and others and called their comments.