The Governor Punjab Sardar Saleem Haider has passed an order dismissing 228 appointments/promotions made at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. The media has highlighted this order as a one-sided story. Important facts of the case are mentioned here for the consumption of the public at large and for the governor to rethink. The media is requested to publish my side of the story.
The order of the governor conveys the message that the vice chancellor has made 228 appointments without advertisement. According to law, VC has no powers to make such appointments in grades 17-21 and no regular academic appointment can be made without advertisement.
There is a statutory process of budgeting the vacancies every year through a Finance and Planning Committee, Syndicate and Senate. The Senate is chaired by the Governor or his nominees. Only budgeted vacancies can be filled. According to the HEC standards and requirements set by the accreditation councils we need at UAF at least 1100 faculty members for 35000 students at five campuses, with a 1/30 teacher/students ratio. Ideally, that should be 1/20 which means 1700 faculty members whereas the university currently has around 700 full time faculty members. The university has had around 50 recruitments and promotions during 2017-2021 due to litigations while many more had retired. Entire campus community was frustrated due to lack of promotions and many had left the university. This order of governor will ensue a new round of litigation which may not settle for the next several years, hence no recruitments/promotions again. That means a serious decline in the quality of education and research.
Considering the huge vacuum, advertisements were made during the years 2022 and 2023 and 1000s of applications were received. The statutory process requires determination of eligibility of each candidate one by one. The ineligible candidates are to be informed and given an opportunity to appeal. Once appeals are settled, then dossiers of applicants are sent to panels of experts including foreign evaluation of TTS faculty (Tenure Tack System). The average process time for an advertisement to complete is more than a year. HEC had mandated to complete the recruitments of advertisements of the year 2022 by 31st August 2024.
During the years 2023/2024, more than 100 selection board meetings were held, and more than 500 appointments and promotions were recommended to the syndicate for approval. It is to be noted that the selection board is composed of a member of the Punjab public commission, three persons of eminence, experts, deans/directors and departmental chairs. VC is the convener who is one vote only. Convening such meetings with the required quorum with the availability of members from out-of-town is a herculean task. Summer months are usually the time of the year when the university organizes such meetings in a row. There is no bar in the law or policy restricting VC to convene/chair meetings in the last months of his tenure. In the instant case, that was a continuation of process in place during the past two years.
It is to be noted that the 17 members syndicate of the university is the appointing authority. The syndicate includes a judge of high court, three provincial secretaries, a nominee of HEC, three persons of eminence appointed by the government. That now includes the sitting chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology. The Governor in his order has cited a letter of HEC which was written about the last meeting of the syndicate in which five cases of promotion were approved in a proper quorum. The HEC nominee attended all meetings of the syndicate assailed by the Governor and the appointment decisions were taken without any objections from HEC nominee.
Under Section 11-A of the University Act, Governor has a revisional power with a proviso that he cannot pass any adverse order without affording personal hearing to the affected parties. The order passed by the governor lacks legitimacy because the same has been passed without meeting the requirements of the law i.e. without affording personal hearing to the 228 affected, members of the selection boards and syndicate, and the former VC.
As a brief analysis of the order, I would like to state that if it had transpired to the Governor to invoke his powers on the 8th of October during his visit of the university, then why did he not summon the sitting VC there and then? Why did he wait until the 21st October to seek record i.e. a day after the retirement of the sitting VC? Why did he not meet the ends of justice by offering personal hearings to the affected parties? And a million-dollar question is why the emissaries of the governor house are now advising affectees to file review appeals?
I have record to prove that the Governor House has been sending ‘wish lists’ before and after the 8th October and following up on the same till the 19th October. Since those were not according to the merit, hence denied. As a reaction, the Governor House woke up on the 21st October to procure record and passed an order in haste and as a punishment to the outgoing VC. In the insinuating process, the careers of 228 meritorious citizens of this country and members of the elite academic community have been destroyed. All are condemned unheard!
This action of the Governor has also maligned highly placed members of the selection boards and the syndicate, again without an opportunity of a fair trial. It is to be noted that there are case laws prohibiting such actions. The integrity of these statutory bodies is beyond any question. A standing order of a former governor (Lt Gen Muhammad Iqbal) is in the field in which he had refused to question the evaluations of the selection board. The Governor has specifically attacked the VC as vengeance.
The Governor has a political agenda and universities are an easy target for him. Only recently he refused to approve the appointments of 24 Vice Chancellors recommended by the Chief Minister Punjab. The appointments were then made with the force of law and without his assent. He also publicly blamed the search committees of corruption in the selection of Vice Chancellors. That was an irresponsible smear act against a group of highly placed members of the civil society without any evidence.
The outcry among the UAF campus community is genuine. I am sure, the order of the governor lacks transparency and proper force of law. The affectees are likely to challenge this order which should be a preferred option instead of a review appeal before the Governor. Being an affected person, I also intend to challenge the order of the Governor in the court of law.
Written by: Iqrar Ahmad Khan-Former Vice Chancellor University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF)
