LAHORE: Punjab Governor Chaudhry Sarwar on Thursday ordered the Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) vice-chancellor to fix responsibility for the private law colleges scam.

On his direction, the BZU has constituted a three-member committee to look into findings of an inquiry conducted earlier and identify the culprits who allowed 41 affiliated colleges to flout rules to enrol more than 10,000 students.

In its findings, Dr Omar Chaudhry-led committee constituted earlier to probe into the matter of affiliated law colleges concluded that 29 approved private colleges admitted up to 300 students against the BZU sanctioned strength of 100.

It said 10 colleges had no BZU permission at all to go for LLB part-I (three-year course) admissions and hence all their registered students were prima facie illegal.

Colleges brazenly flouted affiliation and admission rules, says official probe

It states that the Pakistan Law College, Pakpattan, was never affiliated with the BZU and all the registered students are also illegal. It further said the registration of students by some colleges was done without depositing the registration fee.

The inquiry said there was no mechanism for calculation, collection and verification of registration fee on the part of the BZU and private colleges.

“There is a serious lack of coordination between the registrar office and the treasurer office for verification of university income.”

It also states that the vouchers of examination fee and registration fee submitted by Muhammadan Law College, Multan, and the Pakistan Law College, Pakpattan, were fake and self-stamped and the same was admitted by their directors. It needs to be further verified for how long this practice by the said colleges has been continuing.

The committee said previous years examination and registration fee record of these colleges should also be verified.

BZU registrar Rashid told Dawn the first probe committee established by the syndicate had found serious irregularities into the affairs of the law colleges. He said the colleges did not follow directions of the syndicate which had rejected further admissions in the three-year law programme.

The governor who chaired a meeting of BZU officials at the Governor House on Thursday directed the varsity administration to issue a notification about the status of more than 10,000 students of 41 law colleges.

A press release issued by the governor office quoted Chaudhry Sarwar as saying that no one would be allowed to play with the future of students. The release ignored the fact how 12 colleges having no BZU affiliation would be accommodated.

It said after the notification, the students would be able to appeal to the chancellor for other issues, including their examinations.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2022