Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) Officers Welfare Association (OWA) and Employees Welfare Association (EWA), representing over 600 permanent employees, have unanimously resolved to condemn Dr Sohail Naqvi’s rebellious attitude in willfully denying the legitimate orders of the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
A joint statement issued by EWA and OWA on Saturday stated, “Dr Sohail has enjoyed the status of HEC executive director for over 10 years against the rules declared by the Establishment Division. We urge the chairman to carry the prime minister’s instructions forward.”
They said that the notification to remove Dr Sohail had nothing to do with HEC’s autonomy, and it would continue its functions envisaged in the HEC Ordinance 2002.
The statement alleged that the ousted ED, during his 10-year tenure, had done nothing significant for the betterment of HEC, now that his illegal appointment had surfaced he had started terming the Establishment Division’s move as an attack on HEC’s autonomy.
The associations vowed to resist any attempts by Dr Sohail to resume illegal work at HEC. They alleged that the chairperson had double standards regarding the additional charge of executive director given to Qamar Zaman, while the Establishment Division’s decision to transfer Dr Sohail from the Ministry of Information Technology to HEC in February 2003 had been implemented in letter and spirit.
As per HEC Ordinance, the prime minister had a supervisory role and the right to intervene and stop illegal activity by the HEC management. He had to take this decision in the context that: (a) The Commission advertised the position of the Executive Director HEC in national press inviting applications from the potential candidates. August 28, 2012 was the last date for receipt of applications.
He had taken the decision to appoint Zaman as acting ED because HEC had advertised a vacancy of ED in the national press inviting applications from potential candidates, but Dr Sohail had extended his services for the third tenure in a meeting held on August 27, denying the right of open competition against the said position.
Earlier the commission had appointed Dr Sohail at an MP-1 scale and the extension in MP scales was the prerogative of the prime minister.
The prime minister had never delegated the power to appoint officers in an MP scale to HEC.
A group of 200 contractual HEC employees, who had been given an assurance from Dr Sohail for the regularization of their jobs, had staged protest to press the government to reinstate Dr Sohail.