PESHAWAR, July 2: The NWFP health department has sought removal of the medical faculty secretary who refused to carry out an allegedly irregular order of a Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal leader, sources said.

An official said the department had moved a summary to the chief minister seeking immediate transfer of the secretary, Syed Nazar Hussain Shah. "The transfer orders are expected in a few days," the official said.

The cause of the move, the sources said, was the refusal of the secretary to concede to demands an MMA leader. The medical faculty is the examining body for paramedical disciplines.

According the sources, the secretary had cancelled the certificates of paramedics awarded without fulfilling the criteria before 1997. They said he also refused to pass the failed students of a paramedical institute owned by an MMA leader.

In the last examination, all the 175 students of the institute failed, which infuriated its influential owner, who holds an important post in the district government. The leader reportedly tried to influence the secretary to get his students passed, but in vain.

Provincial Health Secretary Dr Ihsanul Haq constituted acommittee comprising senior professors of the Khyber Medical College to re-evaluate the papers of the failed students of the institute.

A procession of the students who had failed was organized to press the demand for the secretary's removal. "The committee found that the results declared by the medical faculty were based on merit and all the students who had failed were asked to re-appear in the examination," the sources said.

However, the MMA leader who kept exerting pressure on the medical faculty secretary. "The health minister called the secretary to his office and asked him to explain the situation before the owner of the institute," the sources said. They said the secretary refused to allow anything against merit.

The secretary was pressured to change some examiners of the medical faculty, which he refused, the sources said and added that he also refused to pass a person on the health minister's directives.

Health Minister Inayatullah denied all the allegations and said he had never asked the secretary for any illegal work. He said the secretary had failed all the students of the private institute, following which he formed a committee to look into the matter. The committee, he said, had later cleared many students.