LAHORE: Justice Sh Azmat Saeed of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday adjourned for an indefinite period the hearing of a writ petition challenging the devolution of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan,
ruling that the issue was already pending in the Supreme Court. The petition was filed by advocate Fahad Ahmed Siddiqi, who submitted that the HEC was established to facilitate the institutions imparting higher education. He said the government had decided to devolve and dissolve the HEC to the provinces and had started consultation with provincial governments in this respect. He said the federal government was trying to save its money by handing over the HEC to provinces. He said in this way, they would save money in the upcoming budget and would ask the provinces to run the HEC from the money they would get from the NFC Award.
He prayed to the court to issue directions to the respondents to abstain from dissolving the HEC. He also prayed to the court to summon the chairman of the Implementation Commission and ask him the extraneous considerations on the basis of which he formed an opinion that the HEC did not fall within ambit and scope of the federal legislative list.
