LAHORE: Four ex-employees of PIA, including two pilots and a stewardess, have confessed to furnishing fake degrees to get appointed or promoted in the national flag carrier, court documents revealed.

All of them had already been terminated or superannuated when the FIA booked them in 2022, following an audit that transpired the appointments of 457 PIA employees on the basis of fake degrees.

Initially, they denied the charges when they approached a special court seeking pre-arrest bail, which was subsequently granted. But after their indictment, they all pleaded guilty and wanted to record their confessional statements.

Judge Tanveer Ahmad Sheikh explained to the accused that they were “not bound to make any confessional statement”. In case, they opted to do so, the same might be used against them and they might be convicted on the basis of the confessions, the judge remarked.

He also gave them 30 minutes and made them sit in the corner of the court to think over their requests. Thereafter, they insisted upon their confessions being recorded.

In her confessional statement, Nazia Naheed from Karachi stated before the judge that she was appointed on July 5, 2001 as an air hostess on a five-year contract. She confessed to having submitted a bogus BA degree to get a promotion. However, she said, the degree was later found to be forged during a scrutiny that led to her termination from service on April 26, 2014.

She claimed she was jobless, while her husband had died in a road accident.

Mohsin Ali also confessed to using a fake BA degree at the time of his appointment as a co-pilot in 2006, while the basic requirement for the job was intermediate. He said he was terminated in 2014 after his fake degree came under scrutiny.

Arif Tarar said he was appointed as a peon in PIA in 1979 and used a fake degree of FA to get a job as data entry operator in the same department. He retired in 2018 after completing a service of 39 years. However, the audit also found his degree bogus and implicated him in the FIR registered by the FIA in 2022.

In his confessional statement, Kashan Aijaz Dodhy of Karachi stated that he was appointed on Nov 13, 1995 as a cadet pilot in PIA and used a BSc degree to get hired, though the basic requirement for the job was FSc. “I used my degree for BSc for showing extra qualification which later on found to be fake during the verification process and I was terminated from the service in 2019,” he recalled.

All the accused regretted their acts and tendered an apology, leaving themselves at the mercy of the court.

Finding the accused persons guilty in light of their confessions, Judge Sheikh convicted all of them for imprisonment “till rising of the court” in addition to imposition of fine of different amounts.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2024