January 23, 2003	Thursday	Ziqa’ad 19, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 22: The Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) has cancelled admission of a fourth-semester MBA student on the grounds of submitting fake documents at the time of admission.

According to reliable sources, a student of MBA-IV, who was granted admission to the course two years ago, was asked to leave the department, as his graduation degree was found to be fake.

The expelled student is son of Sheikh Nisar Ahmad, who works as calligrapher in the examination branch of the university and had allegedly got his son admitted through back door manoeuvring.

They said Mr Sheikh allegedly influenced the verification of the documents owing to his trustworthy relationship with the assistant registrar, admissions, Malik Mohammad Akbar.

As per official procedure, within first semester, the university sends the original documents of its students for verification by the respective universities from where they have passed their examinations.

But, Mr Sheikh allegedly in collusion with his colleagues (working in the same branch, which is responsible for verification of admissions and documents) got his son’s documents cleared and by the time he reached the fourth semester. But the MBA department came to know about the fake documentation of the student and eventually cancelled his admission.

When contacted, Dr Naseer Ahmed, chairman of the department, confirmed that the student was expelled from the department. Answering a question, he said, it was duty of the university’s admission branch to get the documents verified and fulfil other admission related formalities.

Talking to this reporter, assistant registrar, admissions, Mohammad Akbar Malik dispelled the charges that he was involved in the admission scandal. “There are few officials in the varsity, who are deadly against me and had been busy in levelling such allegations but never came up with documentary evidences,” he said.

He also accepted that in certain cases, by the time the university came to know about the fictitious admission, he/she had passed his/her course and issued with a degree.

The issue has been raised a number of times with the public sector universities concerned but to no avail and every time after a number of reminders they verify the documents.

“In these circumstances the QAU can’t do anything,” Mr Akbar said, adding, it was common at the varsity that every year, admission branch unearthed two or three such cases and cancelled admissions.

Responding to a question, Mr Akbar said he had issued a show cause notice to Mr Sheikh to explain his position as legal guardian.”

It may be added here that an inquiry is already under underway about the alleged involvement of the controller examination in a PhD degree scandal.