PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has issued notice to the provincial government, seeking its response to a petition against the recent appointment of the chairman of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Bannu.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Farah Jamshed issued the order after holding a preliminary hearing into the petition of Jehangir Khan, an associate professor at the Government College Management Sciences, Mardan, who was one of the candidates for the post.

The bench fixed June 12 for next hearing of the plea wherein the petitioner has claimed that he was at Serial No. 1 among three names in an initial summary moved on recommendation of a search and scrutiny committee for appointment against the post of the Bannu BISE’s chairman

He, however, added that out of the blue, the name of Sifatullah Khan, who had even not been recommended by the committee, was placed at Serial No 4 in the summary and was appointed as the chairman.

Petitioner claims search committee didn’t recommend incumbent

The respondents in the petition included the KP government through its chief secretary, secretaries of the elementary and secondary education and establishment departments, director of the elementary and secondary education, search and scrutiny committee through the elementary education secretary, and Sifatullah Khan.

The petitioner’s counsel, Javed Ali Ghani, said that the provincial government through a letter on April 1, 2024, had invited applications through a proper channel for different posts in all the educational boards in the province including that of BISE Bannu.

He said that a meeting of the search and scrutiny committee was convened on Sept 26, 204, and subsequently on recommendation of the said committee a summary was forwarded to the chief minister being the competent authority for final selection for the post of the chairman of the board.

Mr Ghani said that on Dec 6, 2024, another summary was moved to the competent authority for approval but certain observations were recorded by the establishment secretary over it on Dec 30.

He said that instead of addressing the said observations, another summary was forwarded on Jan 28, 2025, as per directions of the office of the controlling authority (chief minister.

The counsel argued that in the summary forwarded on recommendation of the search committee, the petitioner was at Serial No 1 whereas Jehandad Khan Marwat and Mohammad Ishaq were at Serial No 2 and 3 respectively.

He, however, claimed that in the fresh summary the name of Sifatullah Khan was also added and he was subsequently approved as chairman by the government on May 13, 2025.

Mr Ghani contended that the same search committee had also recommended names for posts in other educational boards, which were subsequently approved as the chairmen were appointed from among a panel of three names given by the committee for boards in Kohat, Mardan and Swat.

He, however, argued that in the case, ToRs of the search committee had been violated as the name of the respondent (Sifatullah) was nowhere mentioned in the panel of candidates recommended by the committee.

The lawyer said the name of that respondent was included in the summary on the directions of the Chief Minister’s Secretariat.

He argued that the respondents had violated the mandatory procedure, recommendations and subsequent selection on the subject and had illegally appointed the chairman, which was liable to be reversed.

Mr Ghani added that his client had been discriminated against as being on top of the merit list he had not been appointed whereas in cases of other boards the recommendations of the search committee had been followed.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2025