LAHORE, Oct 18: A request for re-checking of intermediate annual examination answer-books has exposed the sheer incompetence of the Lahore Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education administration.

The applicant has earned second position in general science group among boys and shared it with already declared position holder with 954 marks.

Haider Iqbal, son of Muhammad Iqbal (roll number 549268), of the Government College University, had applied for re-checking of his mathematics answer-book and the exercise turned out to be dramatic. Exposing sheer incompetence, the candidate and the board officials found that the examiner had granted him 98 marks, but the award list carried 88 marks. The wrong total of earned marks had ousted the brilliant student from the coveted list of position holders announced six weeks ago.

The board has increased Haider Iqbal’s 10 marks raising his total marks to 954 that led him to share second position with Naeemur Rehman in general science group among boys.

In order to honour the position holder, the Lahore board organised a special medal-awarding ceremony in its offices on Thursday. Board Chairman Nasrullah Virk awarded cash prize, medal and a certificate to the lucky candidate. A gold medal was also awarded to GCU Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Khaleequr Rahman.

In the meanwhile, the Lahore board chairman has terminated the services of Chief Secrecy Officer (Inter) Muhammad Tariq on account of negligence with immediate effect. He has also disqualified re-checking committee members Abdul Ghani, a retired professor, and Government Islamia College, Railway Road, assistant professor Majid Umer Gul forever for any kind of board assignments.

The chairman has also constituted a committee comprising board members – Government Shah Husain College, Lahore, Principal Faqir Muhammad Kaifi, and a retired headmaster Muhammad Iqbal -- to thrash out the matter and report him at the earliest.

Though BISE Chairman Mr Virk was crying hoarse that the board had declared error-free results, the candidates had not believed him. Since the declaration of intermediate annual examination for 2012 results on Sept 8, board spokesman Qaiser Virk told Dawn that around 4,000 candidates had applied for re-checking of their answer scripts. He said the number of applicants for re-checking in Intermediate Part-I annual examination had risen to around 7,000. “The last date for re-checking of intermediate annual examination answer-books on the basis of applications is Oct 20.”

The spokesman also stated that in case of inter-board marking the answer-book in question was marked in the Faisalabad board, where wrong marks were put on award list and continued till the process completed with the declaration of results by the Lahore board.

A number of re-checking applicants had responded sharply on the change of positions and lambasted the incompetence of Lahore board administration. An applicant, Muhammad Naveed, said such gross negligence on the part of education boards was leading students to take drastic action like committing suicide. “One can imagine the state of mind of Haider Iqbal, he has suffered during the last six weeks,” he said.

A former board chairman said the incumbent chairman should have stepped down after the detection of such a gross negligence because he had also received a handsome amount other than his salary to conduct and declare the results.

He said the board chairman was also duty bound to personally check the results of 40 candidates falling behind the position holders.

He said the chairman was the highly paid employee in a board that made this post highly lucrative. “The chairman is paid a substantial amount for visit to each examination centre and his salary gets doubled when the entire process of marking answer scripts and compiling of results is in session,” he added. During the results’ compilation session, almost 90 per cent of board employees get double salaries, he said.