SHC suspends notification of JSMU VC appointment

The Sindh High Court (SHC) suspended the notice regarding the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor (VC) of Jinnah Sindh Medical University (JSMU) on Wednesday until further orders are issued.

The interim order was made after Professor Lubna Ansari filed an appeal to the High Court. The appeal request prohibits the issuance of a notice regarding the appointment of JSMU VC Professor Dr. Amjad Siraj Memon, despite the court’s temporary restraining order.

The plaintiff’s lawyers proposed that a lawsuit was filed against the establishment of a statutory search committee for the appointment of JSMU VC, and one seat of the SHC only allowed the committee to interview shortlisted candidates and prevented it from finalizing the list of selected candidates. He submits that the selection committee forwarded a summary of the finalized candidates and violated the court’s interim order, which restricted the committee from taking any steps to finalize the decision.

He pointed out that the selection committee’s conduct of finalizing the names, forwarding the summary of approval and issuing the VC appointment notice was not only an attempt to ignore the court order, but also undermined the authority of a single judge. SHC.

The lawyer argued that despite the earlier provisional order, the SHC single judge seat allowed to continue to carry forward the spirit of the challenged notice, which seriously affected the rights of the plaintiff in the case.

He proposed that the notice of challenge issued on June 22 and the single judge’s order allowing continued notice are illegal and may be suspended until the case is decided.

The SHC Chamber, headed by Judge Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui, after hearing the arguments of the lawyer, pointed out that the petitioner’s points need to be considered.

The lawyer proposed that before taking action on the challenged notice, he could hear and decide on the application for the provisional order. The High Court issued a notice to the additional attorney generals, the search committee and others on July 14 and listened to their opinions.

At the same time, the High Court suspended the challenged notice regarding the appointment of JSMU VC and the single judge order allowing continued notice. The bench decided to fix the case on July 14. It is worth mentioning that the search committee recommended three names, including Dr. Lubna, who received a maximum of 70 points, followed by Dr. Memon, who received 67.23 points after the interview. CM issued a four-year notice regarding the appointment of Dr. Memon.