ISLAMABAD: In order to ensure that the orders of the Supreme Court are implemented in letter and spirit, a parliamentary committee has directed the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to provide relevant documents pertaining to charges against those PIA employees who have been dismissed from services for allegedly submitting fake degrees and to explain the procedure adopted according to rules and regulations governing such actions.

“These documents are necessary for the standing committee to assist in the process and ensure that the dismissal procedure was fair and transparent and aligned with the orders of the Supreme Court,” said Pakistan Muslim League-Functional Senator Syed Muzzaffar Hussain Shah during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Aviation held here on Tuesday.

The meeting was briefed on alleged harassment of employees by the PIA management.

The committee members said that they believed the PIA had dealt harshly with the dismissed employees, such as pilots, cabin crew, loaders, helpers and assistants, and that it had not followed the required procedures for dismissing people from service.

National flag carrier and CAA have been directed to provide relevant documents and explain procedure used for termination of jobs

The committee expressed annoyance over a letter from the attorney general that had advised it against interfering in the PIA’s operations.

Giving advice to the Senate committee or any other such forum did not come under the jurisdiction of the attorney general and he would have to answer his act in the Senate, said chairman of the committee Senator Mushahidullah Khan of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

In its last meeting, the Senate committee criticised the manner in which the national flag carrier dismissed seven pilots and 73 cabin crew for allegedly possessing fake degrees. It said terminating employees’s service was a drastic action, adding that it was not said in the apex court’s order that employees should be dismissed.

Senator Nauman Wazir Khattak urged the PIA management to first take disciplinary action against those officers who inducted employees into the airline without verifying their documents.

The meeting was informed that 710 staff members had possibly submitted fake academic documents during their inductions. Some 467 PIA staff members were dismissed, another 201 obtained stay orders from lower courts against their dismissals, and another 42 are facing disciplinary actions. The meeting also learnt that 16 pilots of all local airlines had submitted fake degrees.

The dismissed employees of PIA were given an opportunity to speak their minds. Some of them had admitted their mistakes and requested the management to reconsider their cases on humanitarian grounds. Some dismissed pilots were of the view that they were permitted to fly planes on the basis of their licences and not on their degrees.

A pilot, Captain Shehzad, claimed before the committee that he was dismissed on the basis of a fake result card without inquiry and outside the procedure laid down in law. “I have flown every single aircraft in the PIA’s fleet for last 30 years. I have flown presidents and prime ministers and have been an instructor, examiner and trained pilots. I was exonerated in 2016. However, I have been dismissed on the same basis,” he said.

Other dismissed staff claimed that they had been sacked despite possessing genuine documents.

During the meeting on Tuesday, the committee chairman was of the opinion that the PIA management should reconsider its decision. “The PIA management should have issued show-cause notices before issuing charge sheets and inquiries and the dismissal of services should come in the end,” he said.

The committee decided to further discuss the matter on March 7 after submission of documents by the PIA management.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2019