LAHORE: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) revealed before a Supreme Court bench on Friday that academic credentials of seven pilots of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) had been found to be bogus and five of them had not even done matric.

Justice Ijazul Ahsan, a member of the three-judge bench, observed that a non-matric person could not even drive a bus but middle-pass people had been flying aeroplanes, putting the lives of passengers in danger.

The bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar was hearing a matter relating to the verification of degrees of pilots and other staff of the national flag carrier.

The CAA legal adviser told the bench that the authority had been facing difficulties in completing the degrees’ verification process due to non-cooperation of educational boards and universities. The counsel said the PIA was also delaying provision of record of its employees, including pilots and cabin crew. She pointed out that cases of 4,321 employees had been verified while 402 were still pending.

A PIA officer told the bench that at least 50 employees had been suspended for not furnishing their documents. The bench directed the CAA counsel to have a meeting in the conference room of the SC with the officials of the PIA, education boards and the universities to sort out the pending cases.

When the bench resumed hearing after a while, the CAA counsel stated that there were only 207 cases left to be verified. She sought more time to do the needful. The CJP accepted the request and adjourned the hearing till Jan 9.

CJP Nisar also modified an earlier order and ruled that the PIA was free to retain or extend services of its contract employees in accordance with the law. He further asked the PIA to submit a list of its all 498 pilots along with their result of licence examination — Airline Transport Passport Licences and Commercial Pilot Licence.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2018