PESHAWAR: A high level inquiry committee has recommended to the administration of Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan to take disciplinary action against the authorities responsible, including former vice-chancellor and other officials, for appointment of 271 employees in violation of rules and in absence of sanctioned posts.

The 13-page recommendations of the inquiry committee, available with Dawn, paints a bleak picture of the university’s affairs and administration’s disregard for rules and merit during June 2016 to December 2017.

The committee has held the then vice-chancellor Dr Ihsan Ali, registrar Sher Alam, seven members of selection and promotion committee, nine members of three scrutiny committees, three members of appellate committee, test committees, the then pay officer and treasurer responsible for violating rules and making illegal appointments.

Inquiry panel says 271 recruited in violation of rules from June 2016 to December 2017

The university’s sorry state of affairs came to light earlier in April last year when a raging mob lynched Mashal Khan, a student of journalism department, on allegations of blasphemy. Several of the university’s politically appointed officials were accused of being involved in Mashal’s lynching.

The inquiry was launched in the light of a decision of the then chief minister Pervez Khattak on November 27, 2017 to probe the alleged illegal hiring in the university and resultant financial crisis. National Accountability Bureau also pressed the varsity vice-chancellor to investigate the issues.

Similarly, the Governor’s Secretariat also directed the quarters concerned to take immediate action on reports of illegal hiring. Resultantly, a probe committee was notified on April 10, 2018.

The committee was headed by Prof Zahid Ali Khan, the dean of faculty of social sciences. Its 11 other members included several deans and representatives of higher education, finance and establishment departments.

The inquiry report said that 271 employees in different grades were appointed without any justification, sanctioned positions and not following the set procedure in letter and spirit. All the 271 employees are in BPS-6 and bellow including demonstrators, office assistant, computer operators and laboratory assistants etc.

During its probe, the committee found that no need assessment was carried out before the appointment of such a large number of employees that put additional burden on the university’s budget.

The staff appointed clearly showed that it exceeded the available sanctioned positions and in most of the cases appointments were made against non-sanctioned posts.

In its report, the committee has said that the required number of posts for each cadre has not been mentioned in the advertisement. Moreover, no figure was available to know as to how many candidates applied for different positions.

The report said that a handful of candidates were scrutinised and forwarded to the selection and promotion committee for interview. “It is astonishing to note that even the candidates declared eligible were found to be ineligible on various grounds,” it added.

The report said that the probe committee went through the personal files of the appointees and found that almost 90 per cent of them were ineligible. For instance, 13 of the appointed candidates are overage and 159 have no bank receipt.

Similarly, tests were conducted for the appointments but no attendance list was available to ascertain as to how many candidates attended the test. “Test results of 104 of the 271 selected candidates are not available in their individual files. It means that a considerable number of candidates were not present in the test,” said the report.

It said that irrelevant persons might have attempted the test as there was no mechanism for checking. The minutes of the selection and promotion committee were not signed by some of the members. For instance, the recommendation of the entire process was not signed by the then director academics while dead of faculty of arts, who was not member of the committee, signed it in the capacity of co-opted expert.

The same annexure doesn’t have the signatures of the three members including deputy registrar, nominee of the syndicate and head of the concerned section/department.

The probe panel also found that the selection and promotion committee was not constituted in accordance with the provisions of statutes. The selection and promotion committee didn’t ask for original documents and the experience claimed by the candidates.

“All these surplus/illegally appointed persons may be terminated from service after following proper procedure of show-cause and subsequent process by the appointing authority,” said the report.

The probe committee also recommended that charge sheets/statement of allegations may be issued to the responsible officers under efficiency and discipline statutes of the university in the light of the responsibilities so fixed as well as the contents of the report wherever applicable.

A senior official of the university administration, when contacted, said that action had been taken on the inquiry report. “All the 271 employees have been terminated a few days ago while show-cause notices have been issued to the officials involved in the illegal appointments,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2018