Lahore High Court (LHC) has issued notice for January 24 to the secretaries of Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) and Higher Education Department (HED) in a petition filed by three women lecturers of different colleges challenging recruitment of Associate Professors (APs).
The counsel said that the professors, Shaista and Saroya are serving in Government Islamia College for Women, Cooper Road, Lahore while Kausar in Post Graduate College, Samanabad Lahore. He added that Shaista is a PhD scholar and remaining two have MPhil degrees.
He said on May 9, 2010, PPSC advertised 529 permanent posts of Assistant Professors BS 18 (female) for Punjab's Higher Education Department, in which 19 posts for Urdu subject were offered. He said the requisite qualification was so that first preference was to be given to candidates holding Phd degree, second to MPhil degree holders with five-year teaching experience and third preference to candidates holding master degree in the relevant subject with at-least seven years of experience.
He said that his clients applied for the posts in accordance with the conditions. But till December 24, 2010, PPSC did not serve any notice to them. He said in mid December, he came to know that the secretary of PPSC had asked some of his favourite candidates possessing masters degree to appear for interview on December 24 for the said post.
He said that PPSC has almost prepared final list of selected candidates, which could be announced at any time. He maintained that if such unfair, unjustified, illegal, unlawful, improper and discriminatory list is announced, it will prejudice the petitioners' rights and they would suffer irreparable loss. He prayed to the court to check the alleged illegal procedure adopted by the respondents.