MARDAN: The sacked employees of Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan here on Friday held a protest demonstration outside the office of the vice chancellor to express their anger over the decision taken at a meeting of the varsity’s syndicate on Thursday.

The infuriated employees chanted slogans against vice-chancellor Prof Khursheed and termed the decision as sheer injustice with them.

However, the relevant authorities in the university said the varsity had made an Advertisement No 48 in Sept 2015 regarding various positions of BPS-16 and below, and 271 employees were appointed, while 170 employees were engaged on contract basis.

The varsity authorities said the advertisement became very controversial as serious concerns were raised about these appointments from the chancellor’ office, NAB, HEC, higher education department, and some affected candidates had filed a writ petition in the Peshawar High Court that the appointments were illegal as the process was based on mala-fide intentions, nepotism and favouritism.

As the matter attracted attention and the university was left with no option but to initiate an inquiry into the recruitments.

The university constituted a fact-finding committee to look into the matter and submit a comprehensive report.

The committee checked the records and not only found out illegalities in the process of the advertisement but also pointed out irregularities in contract appointments made in the period from June 2016 to August 2017.

The recommendations of the committee were placed before the syndicate’s meeting on Feb 26, 2018. The syndicate looked into the probe report and decided to constitute a further committee to come up with clear recommendations in terms of these appointments made in response to the advertisement, and also contract appointments made in the above mentioned period and to fix responsibilities.

The report of the committee was presented to the syndicate’s next meeting on June 28, 2018, attended by a nominee of high court chief justice, representatives of finance, establishment departments, higher education department, HEC, principals of affiliated colleges, dean of the university and elected representatives of faculty and administration of the university.

The syndicate appreciated the hard work done by the members of the committee and unanimously endorsed its report, thus approving termination of service of all illegally-appointed employees since there were no sanctioned budgeted posts available.

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2018