ISLAMABAD: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has taken action against the fake degree holders according to the corporation’s rules and regulations and terminated services of 300 employees in this regard.

In compliance with instructions of the Supreme Court, the national carrier has been vigorously pursuing the issue of credential verifications of its employees, said a spokesperson in a statement issued here on Friday.

He said that this gigantic task of verification of credentials of around 16,000 employees was taken up by PIA's human resource administration department six months ago in October last year.

The spokesperson said that the verification process is still ongoing in a transparent manner across the board, encompassing all categories and groups of employees without any discrimination.

So far more than 30,000 degrees have been dispatched to concerned educational institutions (universities and education boards) for verification, he said, adding that dispatch process of remaining 3,000 degrees will be completed by mid of April.

Up till now verification of more than 6,000 degrees have been received and out of which 350 degrees were found fake.

In the light of these actions services of 300 employees have been terminated whereas remaining 50 cases are subjudice and court orders are waited for further action.

It is worthy to be mentioned that PIA has expedited the task of verification, however, appropriate action can only be initiated once the replies from concerned university or board is received, the spokesperson concluded.