HEC equivalence certificate doesn’t guarantee admission, FCC rules

The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) in Pakistan has ruled that an equivalence certificate issued by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) does not automatically grant a right to university admission. This decision was made in response to a petition filed by a candidate, Altaf Hussain, who was denied admission to the MPhil program at Punjab University despite passing the GAT-General and university admission tests.

The court emphasized that autonomous educational institutions retain the independent authority to set their own academic prerequisites, including minimum credit hours for specialized postgraduate studies. The FCC dismissed the petitioner's argument that the HEC's equivalence certificate, which he had obtained, should override the university's admission requirements, finding no statutory overlap or contradiction in the university enforcing its academic standards.

Brief written by urgent.news from Dawn - Pakistan's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.