HED yet to move against ICU acting VC

PESHAWAR: The Higher Education Department (HED) is yet to take a decision against the acting vice-chancellor of the historic Islamia College University (ICU) in light of the “most-urgent” directives of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor and chancellor of public sector universities.

Acting vice-chancellor of the university Prof Dr Naushad Khan, however, has rejected the allegations levelled against him by the Governor’s Inspection Team (GIT). He urged the government to form an impartial committee to probe the matter and provide justice to him. The faculty members of the university have also been divided over the issue. Some of the teachers, especially the Teaching Staff Association of the university, is supporting the pro-vice-chancellor and they believe that the action suggested against him was unjust.

While there are a number of faculty members mostly seniors, who believe that the matter was even more serious than highlighted by the GIT report. “More anomalies and irregularities have been carried out in the university under the current administration. Very few things have been mentioned in the GIT report,” a senior faculty member told The News, wishing not to be named. The GIT recently submitted its nearly 500-page report wherein serious allegations were leveled against the current acting vice-chancellor of the university and some other faculty members and administrative officers.

The report in its eight-page recommendations suggested a stern action against the incumbent acting vice-chancellor Dr Naushad Khan and some other officials of the university. The Governor’s House in light of the GIT report and some other reports which appeared in the media asked the HED through a letter to send the pro-vice-chancellor on forced leave to ease the tension in the university. The HED is yet to take action in line with the governor’s directives. Sources in the HED told this reporter that they were in a fix over the appointment of a new acting head of the university. The HED is supposed to name one of the seniors most faculty members of the university as pro-vice-chancellor or give him acting charge. The problem is that one of the two senior-most professors Dr Inayat Ali Shah has also been named in the GIT report with some allegations against him. His case has been recommended to be placed before the university’s senate.

Dr Nisar, the other senior-most faculty member, is going to retire from service soon. Though not named in the GIT, Dr Nisar too has an allegation of plagiarism against him. The remaining two senior professors include Dr Sareer Badshah and Dr Islam. The authorities have to pick any one of them and place him on the top seat in the historic institution, the sources said.

When reached by telephone to seek his version, Dr Naushad flatly rejected the allegations. He said everything mentioned in the GIT report against him was baseless. The matter should be impartially probed as it is a planned effort to defame him, he said. President, Teaching Staff Association, Dil Nawaz Khan, said that he might have differences with the acting vice-chancellor but in this particular case he had been made scapegoat for the ‘wrongdoings of others’. He said the GIT must have been influenced to bring out the desired report against the vice-chancellor. Dil Nawaz Khan said all the irregularities and wrong decisions in the university were taken during the tenure of former vice-chancellor and a “two-time third divisioner” Dr Habib Ahmad but nobody was mentioning him. Another senior professor, who supports the GIT report and governor’s directives to send the pro-vice-chancellor on forced leave, said that the report was based on actual facts. “Actually, very few things have been mentioned in the report against the pro-vice-chancellor. The matter was even more serious,” he said.