KARACHI, June 8: The Sindh Service Tribunal has reinstated a provincial assembly librarian compulsorily retired in 2001 for producing a bogus matriculation certificate at the time of her appointment in 1973. The appellant, Ms Gulshan S. Haji, was served a show-cause notice by the assembly secretariat in January 2001 that the certificate testifying that she passed the matric exam in 1963 had been found fake by the Karachi board of secondary education.

According to the secretariat, she failed to respond to the first or the final notice and was, therefore, compulsorily retired in April 2001.

Advocate Mohammad Nawaz Shaikh, her counsel, submitted that she duly answered and denied the allegations against her but that her replies were ‘mischievously misplaced by someone in the assembly office’. She passed her matric exam in 1960 and not 1963 and went on to acquire higher education and obtain more certificates and degrees.

Assistant advocate-general Mrs Tabassum Ghazanfar said the appellant had a poor service record and was served notices previously and even her annual increment was stopped once. Her matric certificate being bogus, her appointment was initially void, the AAG argued.

SST chairman fomer justice Abdul Ghani Shaikh and member Nur Ahmad Shah said in their order that appellant’s previous record had no nexus with the matter before the tribunal. The appellant admittedly joined service in 1973 but her matric certificate was sent to the education board for verification in 1995. The verification was received in 1995 but the proceedings against her were initiated in 2001.

According to the duplicate certificate produced by her counsel, the order said, she passed the matric exam in 1960 and not in 1963. She passed her intermediate, BA and MA (Library Science) exams in 1963, 1968 and 1970. Allowing the appeal, the tribunal said the intervening period between removal and reinstatement shall be treated as ‘leave of the kind due’.