SHC suspends notification of JSMU VC’s appointment

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday suspended the notification with regard to the appointment of the Jinnah Sindh Medical University (JSMU) vice chancellor (VC) till further orders.

The interim order came on a high court appeal filed by Prof Dr Lubna Ansari seeking an injunction against the issuance of a notification for the appointment of JSMU VC Prof Dr Amjad Siraj Memon despite interim restraining orders of the court.

The plaintiff’s counsel submitted that a lawsuit had been filed against the formation of a statutory search committee for the appointment of the JSMU VC and a single bench of the SHC had only permitted the committee to conduct interviews of the shortlisted candidates and restrained it from finalising the list of the selected candidates. He submitted that the search committee forwarded a summary for the finalisation of candidates and violated the interim orders of the court whereby the committee was restrained from taking any steps with regard to the finalisation.

He submitted that the action of the search committee of finalising the names, forwarding the summary for approval and issuance of a notification for the appointment of the VC was not only an attempt in disregard of the court orders but also undermined the authority of the single bench of SHC.

The counsel submitted that later an SHC single bench, despite the earlier interim order, allowed the continuation of the spirit of the impugned notification which severely affected the right of the plaintiff in the case.

He submitted that the impugned notification issued on June 22 as well as the single bench order which allowed the continuation of the notification was unlawful and liable to be suspended till the decision of the case.

A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui after hearing the arguments of the counsel observed that the points raised by the petitioner required consideration.

The counsel submitted that the application wherein the interim order was passed may be heard and decided before the impugned notification could be acted upon. The high court issued notices to the additional advocate general, search committee and others and called their comments on July 14.

The high court in the meantime suspended the impugned notification with regard to the appointment of the JSMU VC as well as the single bench order that allowed the continuation of the notification. The bench decided to fix the case for July 14. It is pertinent to mention that the search committee had recommended three names including Dr Lubna, who obtained the highest 70 grading, followed by Dr Memon who got 67.23 grading after the interviews. The CM issued a notification with regard to the appointment of Dr Memon for a period of four years.