LAHORE: Governor Chaudhry Sarwar has given a two-month deadline to 12 public universities in Punjab to take up the matter of illegal appointments made during the last 10 years and report to him about them after fixing responsibility.

The governor has forwarded the report of the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) Punjab that detected over 4,500 illegal appointments in the universities.

The governor, who is also the chancellor of the public sector universities, directed the VCs to take the matter to their syndicates to ‘investigate and fix responsibility’.

In a talk to Dawn, Governor Sarwar said, “It is the responsibility of the vice chancellors that all appointments are made on merit”.

He added that the ACE had pointed out illegal appointments in some public sector universities.

“I have sought a report from the varsities in question and action will be initiated in accordance with the law against those involved in illegal appointments,” Mr Sarwar declared and added that being the chancellor, he had appointed all VCs on merit and it was their duty to ensure all appointments in their respective institutions on merit.

Earlier, the ACE had recommended to the chancellor to take ‘strict legal action’ against those involved in illegal appointments in 12 varsities.

According to the ACE, some 4,554 illegal appointments (from BPS-1 to BS-17 and above) were made against the rules and service laws without advertising vacancies with a financial impact of Rs6bn during the last 10 years or so.

Talking to Dawn, Punjab University VC Prof Dr Niaz Ahmed said the chancellor had directed the varsity to look into the matter as per its Act.

“All these appointments identified by ACE were contractual. We are going to convene the syndicate meeting to take up the matter and will report back to the chancellor,” Prof Ahmed said and added that not a single appointment was made on contract during his tenure.

An official of the University of Sargodha, which tops the other varsities with 1,099 illegal appointments, said the syndicate meeting would be held at the earliest and the chancellor’s deadline would be met.

A senior official told Dawn that it would not be easy for the syndicates of the universities to undo the appointments, which they had made earlier and also recommend action against former VCs and registrars allegedly involved in illegal appointments.

Illegal appointments have been detected at the University of Sargodha (total 1,099 illegal appointments), University of Punjab Lahore (689), Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, (784), Government College University Faisalabad (GCUF) (209), Government College Women University (GCWU) Faisalabad (540), Women University Multan (94), Government Sadiq College Women University Bahawalpur (50), Fatima Jinnah Women University Rawalpindi (524), Government College University Lahore (136), University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences Lahore (310), University of Engineering and Technology Lahore (15) and Khawaja Fareed Engineering University Rahim Yar Khan (98 illegal appointments).

The ACE, in its findings said ad hoc/contractual/DPL postings were mostly converted into regular appointments by using authority against the prescribed service law/rules/regulations and the posts were not advertised properly.

“The emergency powers provided in the Act of all universities provisional /federal universities should be deleted forthwith to avoid the indiscriminate use of emergency powers, which creates chaos in the universities,” the ACE had said.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2021