MULTAN, Dec 4: The Bahauddin Zakariya University syndicate will meet on Saturday to discuss a wide agenda, including appointment of Professor Emeritus, substandard construction of the university’s convocation hall, decisions taken by the VC using emergency powers and action against a professor on charges of ‘misconduct’.

For the appointment of Professor Emeritus, names of six professors are proposed, with sitting VC Dr Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry atop the list. The others are Dr Ashiq Muhammad Durrani, Dr Muhammad Ishaq Akhtar, Dr Khwaja Imtiaz Ali, Dr Mumtaz Husain Bokhari and Dr A B Ashraf. Except the last two, the others had been the former vice-chancellors of the university.

All the nominees, except VC, are retired professors. Sources in the university claim that only a retired professor could qualify to become Professor Emeritus and this would be, perhaps, a novel example that a serving person was being considered for the slot.

Even in the criterion laid down for the appointment of Professor Emeritus, which is appended with the agenda for the syndicate meeting, it is clearly mentioned that any member of the syndicate or any other person can propose a retired professor for conferment of the title.

The university had reportedly also contacted the Quaid-i-Azam University of Islamabad, the Karachi University and the PU to know whether an in-service VC could become Professor Emeritus.

All the three universities informed the BZU administration that there was no precedent of appointing a sitting VC as Professor Emeritus. It may be added here that the Professor Emeritus is entitled to draw a monthly honorarium for lifetime, that should be at least two-third of the salary he or she drew last at the time of retirement and accommodation on the university campus and other perks.

The university had issued show cause notices under the removal from services ordinance to its former project director Mian Aziz Ahmed, engineer Aftab Ahmed Sahu and assistant engineer-II Mian Allah Bakhsh for the poor construction work in the multi-million convocation hall project.

The chargesheeted officials had submitted their replies and the Dec 6 syndicate meeting is likely to decide their fate. An inquiry committee had already directed the university authorities to blacklist the contractor found guilty of the substandard construction work besides the recovery of the amount from him that had been spent on the faulty structure. But, instead, the university recently gave the contractor another project worth Rs4m.

The university management will place before the syndicate for approval some unprecedented 48 orders of the VC he issued using emergency powers under section 16(3)A of the University Act that included contractual appointments, syllabus of various subjects introduced at the university recently or of those subjects now being taught under the semester system, affiliation of colleges and award of PhD degrees.

Most of the orders have been issued on behalf of the syndicate or the academic council. The chancellor has directed the VCs of the universities in May 2003 that his office should be informed well in time about the decisions taken in emergency with a clear justification for adopting this way to run the affairs.

A source in the university said that the chancellor’s office had not been informed so far about any of the orders being placed before the syndicate for approval.

The matter of issuing show cause notice to Dr Akhtar Ali, dean of the engineering faculty of the university, will also come under consideration of the syndicate as the varsity management has accused him of leaking official documents to agencies.

Dr Malik had sent an application with supporting documents to the NAB, alleging gross irregularities in the financial and posting matters of the university.

The VC had recently issued him a show cause notice under the removal from services ordinance for approaching ‘outside agencies’ directly, instead of going through the official route of the VC office.

In his reply, Dr Malik said that he had made some 23 written communications to the VC office to point out the irregularities before going to the NAB.