HYDERABAD: The controller of examination, a grade 20 official, is looking after the affairs of the Sindh University in the absence of vice chancellor despite presence of the most senior professors and deans (grade 21 and 22) in the university.

The vice chancellor, Dr Abida Tahirani, a pro-VC of the university who took over as acting VC after Dr Nazir Mughal quit in the wake of a high court order on June 12, has been on leave since Aug 18.

She handed over the charge to the controller, who also holds the additional charge of the registrar in his absence, according to general secretary of the Sindh University Teachers Association (SUTA) Dr Azhar Shah.

Dr Shah said that Dr Tahirani was still an acting VC because the Sindh government had not yet finalised the appointment of the VC through the due process which began with an advertisement in September last year.

SUTA president Dr Arfana Mallah agreed with him and said that a VC was to be appointed as per procedure already laid down for the appointment of the highest post.

She said that handing over power to a junior official was a bad precedent set by the outgoing VC Dr Nazir Mughal. “He [Mughal] used to hand over look-after charge to his registrar instead of some senior professor or dean and unfortunately the acting VC is also following the practice,” she said.

Dr Shah pointed out that anyone of the three pro-VCs could have been given the charge.

The registrar’s discharging the responsibilities of acting VC was quite wrong in the presence of deans who were serving in BS-21 and BS-22. It was disturbing to see an official in BS-20 heading the SU, he added.

The Sindh government has to finalise a name for the appointment of VC after shortlisting the names of applicants who had applied for the post. The names also include those professors who have returned from foreign countries after finishing higher studies.

About 42 applications were submitted in response to the government’s advertisement last year. According to some sources, the names had been shortlisted and now interviews were to be held for the final appointment.

Dr Mallah was of the view that Dr Tahirani was given the charge to ‘work’ as VC like Dr Parveen Shah of Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur, through a government notification.

The government needed to follow the set procedure and the high court’s order was quite clear in this connection that due procedure should be adopted for the appointment of VC in Sindh University.

She said that although the present VC did take up some issues of teachers, a permanent VC was entirely different from an ad hoc one. Issues like selection board and advertisement had still been kept in suspension, she added.

Dr Shah said that SU remained dysfunctional for all practical purposes because the acting VC was not willing to look into many important matters like the selection board of teachers, advertisement for various posts of faculty members, etc.

For instance, he said, a teacher’s loan was approved for higher studies by the university’s syndicate but the registrar who was looking after the SU affairs was not granting final approval to his application.

Secondly, he said, the Aug 18 notification issued by the registrar was backdated because when he met him on Aug 20 the official did not show it to him. This notification did not have any reference to the Governor House which ought to have been there because when the VC went on leave he or she was required to submit an application to the governor, he said.

Now, he said, as per the Aug 18 notification pro-VCs and senior most deans were working under a lower grade official which was a serious administrative failure.

The controller of examinations Mohammad Ali Pathan evaded the question as to who was looking after the university’s affairs in the absence of VC and said: “Everyone is discharging his responsibility be it deans, focal person or coordinator and nothing unusual has happened in the university so far. In case anything happens, we all will sit together and resolve it”.

He said the VC had been on leave but did not clarify who was holding the charge of the VC’s office in her absence. It was not that much serious an issue that was being raised, he insisted.

But SUTA president Azhar Shah did not agree with him. More and more issues were cropping up. The registrar, Ghulam Mohammad Bhutto, was already on leave and the controller was not in a position to handle them. The SU was going through an unusual situation nowadays, he said.

SU VC Dr Tahirani could not be reached as her mobile phone remained unattended despite repeated calls.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2014