Justice Chaudhary Muhammad Iqbal of Lahore High Court on Friday declined to hear a case due to personal reasons which was about challenging the appointment of Professor Dr Faisal Masood as director general of Punjab Human Organ Transplant Authority (PHOTA) to explain his appointment. The judge requested the chief justice of Pakistan to assign the case to some other bench for hearing. A known orthopedic surgeon Professor Dr Amir Aziz had filed the petition. Petitioner counsel had taken the plea that the post of director general/administrator of PHOTA had never been advertised by the government as required under the rules. He alleged that later Dr Faisal Masood himself had advertised the post when he had additional charge of PHOTA DG being vice chancellor of King Edward Medical University. He pointed out that the terms and conditions including eligibility criteria was finalised and advertised by Faisal Masood himself, which in fact was required to be done by the government. He submitted that even as per advertised terms and conditions, the respondent was not eligible to apply for the post. He said that services of the respondent, a retired government servant, were not indispensable and if the post was advertised by the competent authority there would have been numerous eligible candidates for the post. He requested to set aside the appointment of Masood as director general of PHOTA as illegal and order the government to appoint a qualified person against the post in a transparent manner. Published in Daily Times, September 15th 2018.