Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Masood Kausar has taken note of recent re-employment of senior level officials at the University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Peshawar, and sought explanation from its vice-chancellor Imtiaz Hussain Gilani.
In an official letter dated January 15, 2013, the additional secretary to governor has asked the VC to explain his position about the re-employments of senior officials without taking prior approval of the chancellor (the governor).
“We received the letter last week and will send response in a few days,” said Mr Gilani when contacted by Dawn. He said that his staff had held a meeting with the governor’s staff. “Mir Abdul Rehman told my staff that similar letters have been sent to other universities as well,” he said.
According to the letter, the UET administration re-employed ‘retired officers/officials against important posts like registrar of the university, consultant (establishment/administration), advisor (legal), coordinator Kohat campus, etc. under section 11(4) of Chapter-III of the UET Peshawar Ordinance 1980.’
Sources in the UET told Dawn that in a couple of cases the age of re-employed officials was well past the age of superannuation and as per the university’s rules retired officials beyond 65 years of age could not be re-employed even by the chancellor.
According to the letter, these re-employments have been made without prior approval of the governor.
“It has, however, been noted with concern that prior approval of the chancellor as required under section-24 of the University Service Statutes 1996, had not been obtained in the said cases,” contained the letter with instructions that an ‘urgent report on appointment of all the above mentioned and other such reemployed officers/officials may be forwarded for governor’s perusal within 15 days.’
The official source privy to the matter said that retired officers had been re-employed under section 25(b) of the services statutes which dealt with re-employment of lower category of employees who drew salary on contract or on work-charged basis.
The Governor House has also pointed out that re-employment of retired employees was against the Supreme Court judgment on the subject. When asked, Mr Gilani said that the SC judgment was passed two years ago in a case pertaining to appointments in the Intelligence Bureau.
“The case pertained to regular appointments and if you read the entire judgment the SC had clearly stated that re-appointments should not be made if they disturbed promotions of in-service regular staff and that the appointments should be made in accordance with the rules of the institution,” said Mr Gilani.
