ABBOTTABAD: The Peshawar High Court’s Abbottabad Circuit Bench has restored Prof Azizun Nisa as the dean of the Ayub Medical Teaching Institution, Abbottabad.

Prof Nisa had challenged her dismissal by the chairman of the AMTI board of governors on the orders of the chief secretary.

The order for her restoration was announced by Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Arshad Ali on the completion of hearing into her petition.

Chairman of the AMTI’s BoG retired major-general Asif Ali Khan had terminated Prof Nisa from service on the chief secretary’s orders in light of the recommendation of a Hazara commissioner-led panel, which probed the charges of administrative irregularities against her.

The petitioner had made the health secretary and AMTI BoG respondents in the petition.

She claimed that the Abbottabad AMTI’s BoG, especially its chairman, wanted to remove her from the dean’s post and leveled baseless allegations against her without formally conducting inquiry under the Efficiency & Disciplinary Rules, 2011.

The petitioner said the divisional monitoring and evaluation department had conducted an inquiry against her and recommended the termination of her service, which she learned about through the show cause notice.

She added that she wasn’t formally told about grievances against her and therefore, the recommendation against her was without lawful authority.

The petitioner insisted that first, the powers were rested with the BoG, which couldn’t delegate them to its chairman and second, the board didn’t follow the laid-down procedure for the termination of her services and therefore, the BoG chairman’s order against her had no legal standing.

The judge observed that the efficiency & discipline rules 19, 16 and 96 was not followed for the termination of the petitioner, while the inquiry conducted against her too lacked legal value.

Dr Aftab Rabbani was made the AMTI’s new dean after the removal of Prof Nisa. However, it caused tensions on the premises prompting the administration to call the police, especially when Dr Aftab showed up to assume the charge of the new office.

However, the commissioner of Hazara division ensured peace by ordering status quo on the matter as long as the matter was sub judice.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2018