LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Wednesday issued notices to the Punjab government and the secretary of specialised healthcare and medical education department on a petition challenging the process for the appointment of the Shaikh Zayed Medical Complex (SZMC) chairman.

Justice Rasaal Hassan Syed heard arguments of the petitioner’s counsel before issuing notices to the respondents for Jan 10.

Prof Shahzad Ashraf, head of Department of Transplant Surgery (Kidney) at the SZMC, had moved the petition.

Advocate Nasir Qureshi argued on behalf of the petitioner that the government relaxed eligibility criteria for the post in violation of a reported judgment of the LHC and decisions of the Board of Governors (BoG) of the SZMC. He said the government had no legal justification or lawful authority to alter the minimum eligibility criteria set for the post.

The counsel stated that previously a candidate was required to have at least 15 publications to his credit including at least three international publications to become eligible for the post whereas the number of required publications through impugned advertisement had been reduced to eight with mala fide intention to accommodate some blue-eyed candidates.

He pointed out that by limiting eligibility only in favour of professors of public sector universities, all other eligible candidates associated with reputed local and foreign institutions had been deprived of competing on merit.

The lawyer asked the court to set aside the impugned decision of the government and suspend the appointment process till decision of the petition.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2019