SHC orders Fuuast to maintain status quo on fresh appointments

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday ordered the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology (Fuuast) and its acting vice chancellor (VC) to maintain status quo with regard to the announcement of fresh appointments of lecturers, associate professors, etc. in any department of the varsity till further orders.

The interim order came on a petition of Rasheed Khan and others who challenged the fresh appointment criteria by the varsity and the announcement of test results by the selection board.

The petitioners submitted that they had applied for different posts in BPS-18 to 21 in the university but the Fuuast administration conducted tests against the varsity’s own rules and policy.

They alleged that the acting Fuuast registrar, who had also applied in the test and passed it, was responsible for the irregularities and he caused the examination to be based on a wrong syllabus so that they were unable to pass the examination. The petitioners submitted that Fuuast violated the syndicate annual general body resolution and conducted tests in violation of the university laws and policy.

They maintained that the varsity failed to follow and implement the policy and regulations of the its senate’s 40th general body meeting and conducted the written test for the years 2013-2017 on the publication of 2017 in a hasty manner on June 12, 2021. Their counsel submitted that the acting VC of the varsity was not supposed to make appointments on the assistant professor post or any other post and was only empowered to continue the charge for a period of six months from October 2020 till March 2021. The SHC was informed that the tenure of six months of the acting VC had not been further extended by the varsity’s chancellor, the president of Pakistan.

The counsel also relied upon the orders issued on identical petitions which were also pending before the court. The high court was requested to direct Fuuast not to make any fresh appointments of lecturers in any department of the university on the basis of the results of the test conducted on June 12 till such time a permanent VC was appointed by the syndicate through the chancellor.

After the preliminary hearing of the plea, a division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui issued notices to Fuuast, its acting VC and others, and called their comments. The SHC in the meantime directed the varsity to maintain status quo with regard to the announcement of fresh appointments of lecturers, associate professors, etc. till further orders.