LAHORE: Chief Justice Saqib Nisar on Saturday directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to complete its inquiry into the transcript issue of the sub-campuses of the University of Sargodha (UoS) within a week and submit its report.

He was hearing a suo motu case on a petition of the students of private campuses of the university at the Supreme Court’s Lahore Registry.

He asked the NAB director general to hear the UoS vice chancellor who had put his job at stake by exposing the sub-campuses scam involving the influential people.

The CJ expressed concern over the poor quality of the sub-campuses and added that they were distributing degrees without any regular faculty.

UoS VC Dr Ishtiaq Ahmad informed the court the private sub-campuses students’ transcript issue had been resolved according to the court’s order. He highlighted the unlawful constitution of the five sub-campuses, including those in Lahore and Mandi Bahauddin, which were not even approved by the university Syndicate.

He said they had allowed admissions above the allocated seats in different programmes, including computer science and IT, admitted 4,500 students in a year whereas the main campus was admitting just 1,500 students to maintain standards.

Dr Ahmad said the public-private partnership policy was prepared in a haphazard manner without safeguarding the interest of a public sector universities and completion of legal obligations.

The CJ appreciated the work of the UoS VC in acting against the powerful owners of the private sub-campuses.

It’s worth noting the UoS Syndicate had decided to issue the transcripts to the students of private sub-campuses. However, it had restricted the private sub-campuses from making new admissions in 2018.

Summoned: Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar on Saturday directed the Auqaf Director General to appear before the court in alleged theft of Nalain-Pak (slipper) of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) from the gallery of Badshahi Mosque.

The chief justice was hearing an application moved by Pir SA Jafri who questioned inefficiency of the government to fix responsibility for the incident.

The applicant told the chief justice that he had filed a number of applications to the authorities concerned since the incident of theft took place in 2002, however, no serious action had been taken so far except registration of a case.

He said they could not protect Nalain-Pak (shoe) of Prophet Muhammad and it was not a routine matter of shoe theft case outside a mosque.

An additional advocate general said there was no investigation conducted in the matter after the slipper went missing in 2002.

The CJP sought report about donations at shrines and he was told by the additional advocate general that Rs820 million were collected in the shrines in Punjab.

The CJP inquired who was the minister of Auqaf at which he was told that the government had not appointed minister and director general was heading it.

The court directed the DG to appear on next hearing.

acid attack plea: Supreme Court Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar on Saturday ordered arrest of the suspects involved in an acid attack on a woman.

He was hearing an application of Ms Naila of Green Town who was married to a man from Bahawalpur who later divorced her. She had suffered an acid attack allegedly by her former in-laws

The court also ordered DIG Abdul Rab to submit the investigation report of the incident in the court within a week.

The CJP also ordered treatment of the victim at the best hospital in Lahore.

He said the court would take strict action against the police if they failed to arrest the suspects.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2018