ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has allowed the employees, who were issued wrong diplomas in arts, crafts and physical education, to continue with their job, but regretted that senior officers in the education department went into deep slumber and even if a few of them were awake, they watched the sight and spectacle with hands folded and legs crossed.

“And by the time they realised and raised hue and cry, the water had gone above their heads,” deplored a judgement authored by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan while deciding a set of petitions moved by a number of district coordination officers of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan against the appointment of candidates who were issued wrong diplomas by the Skill Development Council (SDC) – a subsidiary of the Ministry of Labour and Manpower.

“Let them continue if they possessed equivalent qualification in addition to the certificates and diplomas issued by the SDC. Let those who improved their qualifications even thereafter also continue,” the verdict said, adding that those who could not improve their qualification up till now should improve it within a period of one year, from the date of commencement of the next available academic session of the respective programme.

The petitioners had challenged the orders of the Lahore High Court, the Rawalpindi Bench of LHC, the Peshawar High Court and the Balochistan High Court which had regularised the appointments made on the basis of these diplomas.

The controversy revolves around an advertisement published by the Punjab government for 4,000 vacancies in the Secondary School and Education for Arts and Craft. The job criteria include one year diploma as educational qualification. The candidates who applied for the job submitted diplomas of the SDC.

Additional Advocate General of Punjab Mudassir Khalid Abbasi, representing the petitioners, argued that the SDC was established under the National Training Ordinance 1980 with an objective of providing technical and vocational training and not for awarding any certificate or diploma in the fields of arts, craft, education or physical education.

The SDC, he contended, had overstepped its limits by issuing certificates and diplomas in these fields. “Since the diploma does not conform to the course, curriculum or training required for arts, craft, education or physical education, any appointment made on the basis of such certificate or diploma being against the provisions of ordinance and rules is liable to be annulled,” Mr Abbasi argued.

Senior counsel Ijaz Anwar, representing the diploma holders, contended that his clients were rightly appointed on the basis of diplomas issued by the SDC and, therefore, no exception could be taken to their appointments.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2016