SHC stays BIEK exam controller’s transfer

Karachi
The Sindh High Court on Friday restrained the government from transferring Imran Chishti, the examinations controller at the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi, outside Karachi without its permission.
The order came on a petition filed by the BIEK examinations controller who had moved court against his transfer from Karachi to Mirpurkhas.
The orders for his transfer had been issued by the chief minister’s secretary on boards and universities, Iqbal Durrani, after a battle of bitter allegations erupted between the BIEK chairman and examinations controller. Among Chishti, 21 other education officials were also sent back to their parent departments.
The newly-appointed BIEK chairman Akhtar Ghauri accused the management of his own board of accepting massive bribes while the examinations controller accused the chairman of putting undue pressure on lower staff to alter the results of students.
Chishti submitted in his application that he had joined the Board of Intermediate Education Mirpurkhas in 2005 and his transfer to Karachi had been approved by the Sindh governor on deputation in July 2007.
He said he was duly absorbed in the BIEK as a deputy secretary on November 21, 2007, and since then he had been working on different posts. He said since May 19, 2011, he had been working as the controller of examinations.
Chishti alleged that the BIEK chairman Akhtar Ghouri, who used to be a secretary of the governor, was appointed at the post on June 20, 2015. He alleged that after his appointment, Ghauri began interfering with his work and directed his subordinates to make illegal changes to the mark sheets of scores of students.
Chishti claimed that it was on his refusal to obey the BIEK chairman’s orders that Ghauri held a press conference and hurled accusations at him for being involved in corruption.
Hence, he said, in his press conference the next day he had countered those allegations by informing everyone that he had refused to obey the chairman’s “illegal” orders.
Chishti said since the BIEK chairman too had remained an official of top offices of the Sindh government, he had organised his transfer to his parent department in connivance with the chief minister’s secretary Iqbal Durrani. He said his transfer had been initiated under the garb of the Supreme Court’s judgment against deputations.
Chishti’s counsel argued that the petitioner was an employee of the BIEK and not a civil servant, hence, the Supreme Court’s judgment regarding deputation, absorption and out-of-turn promotions did not apply to him.
The court was requested to declare that being an employee of the education board, the petitioner’s transfer from Mirpurkhas to Karachi on deputation and his subsequent absorption, did not fall within the purview of the Supreme Court’s judgement.
The court was also requested to restrain the BIEK chairman and others from transferring the petitioner back to his parent board.
The Sindh High Court division bench headed by Justice Munib Akhtar issued notices to the chief secretary Mohammad Siddique Memon, BIEK chairman Akhtar Ghauri and chief minister’s secretary Iqbal Durrani to file their comments by October 13.
It also orders that the petitioner should not be transferred from Karachi without the court’s permission.
Detention of HuT activist
The preventive detention of Hizb-ut-Tahrir activist under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997 was challenged in the Sindh High Court by his spouse.
The petitioner, Noor-ul-Aain Farheen, submitted that her spouse, Mohammad Owais Raheel, an IBA graduate, was picked up by the personnel of law-enforcement agencies on September 12 from DHA Phase IV and since then his whereabouts had been unknown.
She claimed that when she had challenged the detention of her spouse, a police officer of the Gizri police station had informed the court that her spouse had been placed in preventive detention under Section 11-EEEE of the ATA on recommendation of the Counter Terrorism Department of the Sindh Police.
The petitioner submitted that the detention of her spouse under Section 11-EEEE was unlawful since neither a complaint had been filed nor any credible information or material was provided by the law-enforcement agencies to justify his detention.
She requested the court to strike down the detention order of her spouse and order his release. The division bench headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan directed the office to place the matter before the bench that was already hearing the identical petitions that challenged detention of persons under 11-EEEE of the ATA.