The Lahore High Court while declaring the appointment of Principal University Law College Shazia Qureshi as tainted with nepotism made in violation of law and policy held that the post would be filled through fresh appointment in prescribed manner and till that a person possesses requisite eligibility would be given additional charge of principal for interim period.
The court passed these orders in a writ petition of Ammara Akbar advocate seeking her admission in LLM and challenged the appointment of Principal Law College.
No doubt Shazia Qureshi is foreign qualified but undisputedly is an assistant professor in college while according to university calendar and University of the Punjab Act 1973 principal should only be appointed by syndicate on the recommendation of VC amongst the three senior most professors.
In the light of these unambiguous provisions, VC Mujahid Kamran has exercised his powers in arbitrarily to promote nepotism, favouritism and non-transparency.
The court also disagreed with Shazia's counsel that her appointment is a stopgap arrangement due to non-availability of professors/associate professors, ruling that despite vacant posts no serious attempt is made to fill such posts. These posts were advertised in December 2008 but no progress has been made in this regard that conveys a message that in case of appointment of a professor, Shazia would not be able to retain her position.
This way is adopted just to let Shazia continue as principal despite lacking eligibility criteria. Ten months have been lapsed since he was given charge of principal no progress in the entire exercise of filling of posts of professors and associate professors.