HYDERABAD, Jan 31: The Sindh High Court, Hyderabad bench, on Wednesday issued a pre-admission notice to the vice-chancellor of the Quaid-i-Awam University of Engineering and Technology (Quest) for Feb 7 on a petition filed by two students, seeking admission to the university against employees’ quota.

One of the petitioners, Rizwan Hyder, is son of Hyder Bux Jatoi, an assistant professor serving in the university for 30 years, and the other, Shuaib Ahmad, brother of Niaz Ahmad, an employee of the university for five years.

The petitioners said they had submitted application forms for admission against university employees’ quota for academic year 2006-07, for which 13 seats had been reserved. They said that they had appeared in the admission test and got +9.5 and +8.75 marks, respectively. However, they said, the university denied them admission, though of seven of the 13 seats remained vacant.

They said that they were denied admission for the reason that their marks were less than the required marks according to the requirement spelled out in university prospectus-2007.

They said that the respondent vice-chancellor was competent to modify or relax rules and he had exercised the powers in the past.

They said that in last year's prospectus, minimum marks in admission test for category-C were +08 but the vice-chancellor relaxed the condition and granted admission to at least two candidates who had secured +06 marks.

They added that as mentioned in table 5-3 of the prospectus, a minimum five-years service of an employee was required to enable him to seek admission for his/her children or brother/sister in category-C but the condition was relaxed for a candidate, who was son of the director (finance) of the university, working there for less than five years.

They added that even otherwise, the requirement of admission test was exempted for different categories such as candidates belonging to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas), Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Northern Areas, etc.

They prayed the court to declare that they were entitled to admission in the university against special quota for employees.