PESHAWAR, Sept 5: NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai, who is also the chancellor of University of Peshawar, on Wednesday removed vice-chancellor Prof (Dr) Haroon-ur-Rasheed from his office.

A notification issued from the NWFP Higher Education, Archives and Libraries department said the chancellor had relieved Prof Rasheed of his duties with immediate effect and repatriated him to his parent department, the department of chemistry.

The governor has appointed Prof (Dr) Mohammad Javed Khan, dean of the Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences as the acting vice-chancellor with immediate effect till further orders, said a handout.

Prof Rashid could not be reached despite several attempts to know the reasons for his removal before completion of his tenure.

His two-year tenure was to complete in December, 2007.

Senior professors said that Prof Rasheed was not following rules and regulations and constant violations of rules led to his removal.

Prof Rasheed, who was made vice-chancellor in January 2006, is the second vice-chancellor in the history of University of Peshawar who had been removed before completion of the tenure.

During his 19-month tenure, Prof Rasheed faced stiff resistance from some senior syndicate members to some of his decisions regarding appointment of a registrar.

Prof (Dr) Shafiqur Rehman, president of the Peshawar University Teachers’ Association, had raised the issue of violation of rules in the appointment of registrar and assistant registrar by the vice-chancellor during syndicate meetings held in June, 2006.

NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Orakzai twice issued show-cause notices to the administration and called into question the appointments to posts of registrar and assistant registrar (academics).

Some members of the Peshawar University Teachers’ Association had been accusing the vice-chancellor of abuse of administrative discretion and asked him to resign immediately from the post.

Some of the members also complained of ‘victimization’ by the university administration under Dr Rasheed.

The chancellor was said to be annoyed over the failure of the university administration in timely delivery of roll number slips to the candidates appearing in BA/BSc annual examination.

The whole affair was probed by the governor’s inspection team to identify the officials responsible for this serious neglect.

“The inquiry team had found the administration responsible for inefficiency in delivery of roll number slips and the controller examination was removed from the post as a result,” said one professor.

The vice-chancellor again committed a mistake by promoting university registrar from BPS-18 to BPS-21 with retrospective effect.

“This is something which even the syndicate can not do,” said a professor.

The vice-chancellor did not follow the proper procedure and often bypassed the syndicate.

“He took decisions without taking all syndicate members into confidence,” complained one member of the syndicate.