The Judicial Commission has held all chairmen and controller examinations of all eight Punjab Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) responsible for the failure of preparation of computerised intermediate examinations results. The commission, comprising Justice Shahid Saeed, also gave recommendations to the Punjab government regarding action to be taken against the accused under culpable negligence. He recommended that they not be appointed on key posts in the future. If the computerised system had errors, the manual system run alongside it till it is made foolproof, the report said.
The commission asked some pertinent questions of the chief minister regarding the appointment of junior grader Ahad Cheema on the high-grade post of Higher Education Department chairman while more qualified officers were available, as it was in violation of Supreme Court orders. The commission sent the enquiry report, comprising 103 pages, to the Punjab chief secretary and Punjab home secretary. The commission prepared the report after recording statements of 42 witnesses, including of BISEs officialsof BISEs union representatives, students, and other relevant officers.
Registrar of the commission Manzoor Hussain Dogar told the media men that according to the report, all those chairmen and controllers examinations of the BISEs who were appointed or transferred during the process of the computerizations of exams were responsible of the fiasco. He said former chairman of Lahore BISE Akram Kashmiri being the head of the biggest BISE was more responsible than others.
He said as BISEs are autonomous bodies and have full control on their monetary matters but no one had raised objection over the appointment of Dr Majid Naeem, former IT consultant with responsibility of computerizing the exams system of all eight BISEs. The report said Majid changed face-pages of answer sheets which could not be followed by teachers and students. He also abolished the system of putting fictitious roll numbers. He said 6 DMG officers recorded statements and termed appointment of Ahad Cheema as Chairman Higher Education Department as illegal. The CM should hold inquiry against him to establish that the appointment of Cheema was against the SC judgment or otherwise, Dogar said. He said the project of computerization of the exams was worth Rs200m but their was no record of the expenses. Dogar said according to details Yousaf Samdani was appointed as IT consultant through proper procedure. Samdani purchased machinery and other equipments through tenders. Later Samdani was replaced with Dr Majid Naeem who cancelled tenders and later purchased machinery of Rs30 million. There was no notification for his appointment and it was also not clear that who had made his appointment.
