Swabi women varsity asks governor to revoke order on inquiry

PESHAWAR: The Women University, Swabi, has sent a letter to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor /chancellor to cancel his order on the formation of an inquiry in a sub-judice matter pending before the Peshawar High Court (PHC) for a decision.

Interestingly, the governor has initiated an inquiry on the basis of a report, prepared by a law officer beyond his mandate. The matter is pending before the court for decision.

Farmanullah Khattak, legal counsel for the university, told The News that the additional advocate general, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, went beyond his mandate in preparing the report. Besides, he argued that the KP governor committed contempt of court by issuing notification for inquiry in the matter pending before the court for a decision.

“In the exercise of powers conferred on him under Section 21 (2) of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities Act, 2012 (Amendment-2016) the Governor/Chancellor, Women University, Swabi has been pleased to constitute a committee to probe all reported irregularities by the commission appointed by Peshawar High Court in the university and submit report fortnightly,” stated a notification issued on March 20, through the principal secretary to the governor.

The governor appointed the special secretary, Higher Education Department as chairman and four additional secretaries of the department as members of the committee.

The Terms of Reference of the committee include the probe all the complaints pertaining to alleged administrative/financial irregularities coupled with favouritism/nepotism and any other complaint.

However, legal experts termed the notification of the governor to form the probe committee on the PHC report, which is still pending for a decision, not only sub-judice but also contempt of court.

On the other hand, the registrar of the Women University, Swabi sent a letter to the principal secretary to the governor to inform him that the referred matter is sub-judice and pending before the PHC. It was explained in the letter that three different petitions were filed by three former contract women employees (lecturers) of the Women University. They sought the court order for their regularization or extension in the contract. The university stated that the high court had appointed additional advocate general, Rabnawaz for collection and submission of the particulars of all the employees of the university.

It said that the university had already submitted all the record to the court to decide the matter on merit. The varsity requested the governor to revoke his notification on the probe on a matter which was sub-judice.

A division bench headed by Justice Ikramullah Khan in its order passed on December 12 last year had stated that during arguments of the writ petitions the counsel for one of the petitioners as well as the petitioner raised serious objections to alleged nepotism of the administrative officer/appointing authority/vice-chancellor (VC).

It was alleged that the VC was bent upon removing all the contractual employees from their respective posts to appoint persons belonging to Karak as the VC Khanzadi Fatima Khattak belonged to the same district.

“Without disposing of these cases on merit for the end of justice, we direct AAG Rabnawaz to visit the university concerned and collect particulars of all the employees of all cadres and posts and submit this report before the court,” the court ordered.

However, the university objected that the AAG representing the provincial government in the court was affiliated with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and had gone beyond his mandate to collect particulars of the employees, interfere in the affairs of the university and level baseless allegations against the VC about administrative and financial irregularities due to differences of the National Assembly Speaker, Asad Qaiser who is a PTI leader with the VC.

In the objection application, the university’s lawyer, Farmanullah Khattak informed the bench that the AAG went beyond his mandate as he had to collect particulars of the employees, but followed a political agenda and made allegations of financial irregularities and nepotism against the vice- chancellor of the university.

The lawyer said he is going to file a contempt of court petition against the governor to explain to the court how he had ordered a probe into a report, prepared on the order of the court, in which the law officer went beyond his mandate and is still pending for decision before the court. He said that the next hearing in the case is April 30. He noted that out of 225 employees of the university, there were only seven professors from Karak district who secured jobs university through competitive examination. He argued that allegations of nepotism proved false as the VC did not appoint any low-grade employee directly from Karak district.