‘Names of some candidates for co-opted members’ position quietly changed in summary’

Highly credible sources have revealed to The News that certain names were quietly altered in the summary sent to the chief minister of Sindh regarding the appointment of co-opted members to the Search Committee responsible for recommending candidates for the position of vice chancellors to public sector universities. This change was made despite the fact that the chief secretary had agreed to the original names mentioned in the summary.

The Search Committee holds the responsibility of selecting vice chancellors for general, medical, engineering, agriculture, finance, and law universities by conducting interviews of eligible candidates and forwarding suitable names to the chief minister, who makes the final appointments.

It has now come to light that the names proposed in the summary for co-opted members of the committee were replaced. Reportedly, the Secretary of the Universities and Boards Department, Abbas Baloch, had prepared the list of co-opted members after consultation with the chairman of the Sindh Higher Education Commission, Dr. Tariq Rafi. These names were also approved by the chief secretary of Sindh. However, they were later silently changed.

For medical universities, the names of Dr. Ikramuddin Ajan (Vice Chancellor of Liaquat Medical University) and Dr. Umar Farooq (former Pro-Vice Chancellor of Dow Medical University) were initially proposed. These were later replaced with Dr. Saeed Qureshi (current VC of Dow University) and retired Professor Kartar Dawani.

Prof. Dawani holds only an MPhil degree and was previously removed from office for not meeting the qualification criteria. However, he challenged the government’s decision in court, obtained a stay order, and remained in office until the end of his term.

For engineering universities, the names of Dr. Sahibzada Farooq Rafiqui and Dr. Abdul Qadeer Rajput were originally recommended, but Dr. Rafiqui’s name was replaced with that of former NED University VC, Dr. Sarosh Hashmat Lodi.

In the case of agricultural universities, the proposed names were Dr. A. Q. Mughal and Dr. Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Sahrai. However, Dr. Sahrai’s name was replaced with that of former federal secretary Ejaz Ali Khan, who was initially nominated for general universities.

Some additional names were also included in the summary, such as Imtiaz Qazi, Dr. Neelofar Shaikh, Dr. Kartar Dawani, and Dr. Nabeela Soomro. For general universities, however, the names of retired non-PhD bureaucrat Suhail Akbar Shah and former Karachi University VC Professor Peerzada Qasim were retained.

Similarly, no changes were made to the nominations of Dr. Atrat Rizvi and current IBA Executive Director Akbar Zaidi for finance universities, nor those of Justice Zia Pervez and Justice Nadeem Akhtar for the sole law university in the province.

What makes this development particularly notable is that the new nominations to the Search Committee were made at a time when advertisements for the vice chancellor positions had already been published for NED University, Dow University, Sindh University, Tando Jam Agriculture University, Hyderabad University, and Sakrand University and the scrutiny process for candidates in some of these universities has already been completed.