HYDERABAD: An accountability court judge sentenced four education officers to three to five years of imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs31.87 million each here on Wednesday in an illegal appointment case.

The court ordered that accused Jalil Ahmed Lashari, Kewal Ram and Abdul Azeem Khan would suffer rigorous imprisonment for five years while Kamla Devi for three years. In case of default of payment of Rs31.87m fine, the same shall be recovered as arrears of land revenue from them, according to the judge.

They were convicted under Section 10(a) of National Account­ability Ordinance 1999 read with Section 265-H(ii) CrPC.

Jamil Lashari is former director schools of Mirpurkhas; Kamla Devi former district education officer (DEO) secondary and higher education of Mirpurkhas; Kewal Ram ex-DEO elementary education Mirpurkhas and Abdul Azeem Khan, former deputy secretary of education, Karachi.

They were sentenced in illegal appointments case pertaining to various special cadres of teaching staff in the education department. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) filed a reference in 2017 after its probe revealed that the Sindh education department notified a recruitment committee on Dec 15, 2011, for recruitment of special categories of teaching cadre for 2012.

The committee comprised regional director school education as chairman and DEOs of respective districts and office/head of institution having vacancies for recruitment as members. But Lashari changed its formation by appointing a regional recruitment committee through a notification in March 2012.

The NAB reference quoted in the order said Lashari intentionally did not include head of the institution, where vacancies were to be filled, as member selection committee. A retired educationist was inducted in the recruitment committee instead.

The committee was to assist and work under the regional recruitment committee for the preparation of test paper, written test and checking of answer sheets. A written test was held on April 29, 2012 and final merit list was issued on April 30, 2012, by the regional recruitment committee headed by Lashari.

Investigation revealed that on examination of members of assessment and monitoring committee, they denied having checked/assessed answer sheets of the written tests and only signed the final result sheet. Of the 882 candidates, result of only 678 candidates was announced.

According to the probe, neither answer sheets were signed by the assessor nor attendance sheets of candidates/applicants contained signature of invigilators. Even most admit slips did not mention posts for which candidates had appeared in the test. It showed recruitment of 208 candidates was done by the regional committee in violation of procedures.

Lashari wrote to the education secretary on Jan 7, 2017, for authentication of the appointment list and issuance letters for release of salary of the selected candidates, but during investigation no such letter was found in the office of the secretary.

It said Abdul Azeem Khan was authorised by the secretary on Nov 1, 2012, to countersign the list of the newly-recruited teachers on behalf of the education secretary, but the said authorisation was rejected by the deputy accountant general in line with finance department directive dated Jan 14, 2011.

The judgement said Lashari’s act of appointing 208 persons was in violation of procedures for illegal gain. He illegally issued offer letters even to the persons whose educational certificates were found bogus, to legitimise illegal appointment, and in connivance with Azeem Khan got released salaries of illegally appointed persons without due process, causing loss to the national exchequer.

The court said Kamla Devi was under obligation being member of the recruitment committee to conduct appointments fairly, but she managed to get her daughter appointed as physical education teacher without submission of relevant certificate.

She failed to verify original certificates of the applicants from institutions concerned and in connivance with Lashari and Kewal Ram, illegally appointed/selected the candidates.

Accused Kewal Ram in connivance with the co-accused also failed to exercise authority to prevent grant of undue benefit and Abdul Azeem Khan also ignored instructions with criminal intent.

The court noted that the accused in connivance with each other and through abuse of authority made illegal recruitments, thus causing a loss of Rs127.48m to national exchequer on account of salaries determined till Dec, 2016.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2020