PHC vacates stay order on admission to UoP departments

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday vacated the stay order on admissions to the undergraduate programme at the 43 departments of the University of Peshawar (UoP).

The stay was vacated as two-member bench comprising Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Muhammad Ibrahim Khan dismissed the writ petition filed against the second NTS test for admissions by the University of Peshawar.

The bench observed that after going through the record of the case and NTS tests results, no wrongdoing and discrimination has been found out as claimed by the petitioner.

During the hearing, UoP Director Admissions Hasan Asghar informed the bench that about 13,000 students had appeared in the tests for admissions to various departments of the university. He said that students had started getting admissions in private universities due to the stay order of the court and it would also affect the academic year of the university.

He contended that in the first test only 5,000 students had appeared for admissions as thousands of students remained away from the test due to months-long delay in the Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency test for the medical colleges.

The UoP official said the second test was conducted after a demand by the parents of the students in which around 6,000 students appeared.

Waseemuddin Khattak, the legal advisor to the university, submitted that 58 students had given the second test and only four passed it. However, he said that the results of both the tests would be amalgamated and merit lists prepared for admissions to the departments.

The petition was filed by Muhammad Isa Khan, a lawyer. He had stated that the purpose of the second test was to collect more funds from the students as the registration fee for the test is Rs1600 and to adjust the failed students of university employees.