HYDERABAD: The Sindh High Court Hyderabad circuit bench on Thursday issued notices to the secretary of Sindh boards and universities department, Sindh University vice chancellor, Higher Education Commission (HEC) Islamabad, Prof Dr Abdul Sattar Almani and others for May 9 in a petition challenging recommendation of a person involved in plagiarism for appointment as dean of the faculty of education, SU.

The petition was filed by SU’s faculty of education dean Prof Dr Saleha Parveen through Soulat Rizvi advocate. She said she was senior to respondent (Prof Dr Abdul Sattar Almani) given service related particulars of her and respondent. She said the HEC had prescribed criteria for the appointment of faculty members of public sector universities all over Pakistan.

She said Dr Almani had also applied for the post of associate professor. After scrutiny his case was placed before the selection board which rejected it as he was found guilty of plagiarism as per HEC’s policy. Prof Parveen said she was senior to him given her length of service.

Later, she said, he got himself appointed from the syndicate as associate professor on April 26, 2011 without board’s recommendation. The HEC wrote a letter to the VC, mentioning non-compliance of the HEC plagiarism policy through a March 2, 2015 letter. The commission said his eight research papers were plagiarised, she said, adding that the HEC decided to blacklist Dr Almani.

She disclosed that despite HEC’s policy, Dr Almani was appointed as professor on Aug 31, 2013. She said that in view of the HEC’s standing committee decision, Dr Almani was not supposed to hold the office of associate professor and his appointment was illegal. She said the SU’s syndicate without hearing her allowed Dr Almani’s request for getting seniority in its 194th meeting.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2019