–CAA informs apex court that 24 pilots and 67 crew members of PIA have fake degrees
–CJP takes suo motu notice of lawyers’ fake degrees, orders bar councils to furnish response within a month
–Airblue’s official website designates Tariq Chaudhary as company CEO, not Shahid Khaqan Abbasi
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday summoned chief executive officers (CEOs) of all national airlines, including Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, after it was informed by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) that 24 pilots and 67 crew members of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) have fake degrees.
A CAA representative further informed the top court that seven out of the 24 pilots have stay orders from the court while the verification process of 1,972 PIA employees and their degrees has been completed. He said that 17 pilots of the national carrier have resigned or left their posts, the seven remaining are continuing on the basis of their stay order.
The report submitted by Sajid Ilyas Bhatti on behalf of the CAA says that none of the pilots in the private airlines held fake degrees.
“That out of 451 PIA pilots at present, the degree/certificates of 319 have been verified and found to be genuine by PIA. This certificate/degree of 124 pilots are under process. There are seven pilots with bogus degrees who are working because of stay orders passed by courts in their favour,” the report stated.
“The private airlines; Shaheen Air, Airblue and Serene Air requested time to verify degrees of their pilots and cabin crew as they stated they had never done this exercise before. The CAA committee directed them through letters that this exercise needs to be completed in one month positively,” the report read.
After perusing the report, the court summoned CEOs of all national airlines, including Prime Minister Abbasi at the Karachi Registry next week.
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Director Nasir Shah informed the bench that PM Abbasi is the CEO and president of Airblue.
“We summon the CEO of Airblue,” Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar ordered, adding that Abbasi will present himself as the chief of Airblue and not as the prime minister. He said that the issue is a grave conflict of interest. “The chiefs of PIA, Serene, Shaheen and Airblue are all summoned,” he added.
However, Pakistan Today has learned through Airblue’s official website that the current CEO of the company is Tariq Chaudhary while PM Abbasi holds no position in the senior management.
The summons issued to PM Abbasi pertains to a case relating to fake degrees obtained by pilots. The three-member bench fixed the appearance of the top officers of the airline after deliberating for four months on the case.
CJP Nisar also remarked that in the past four months, no report was submitted.
In January, Justice Nisar had issued directives to the CAA Karachi director general to produce the record of movement of private aircraft on all airports during the last 15 days. He had also directed the official to submit the inquiry report pertaining to appointments of pilots made on the basis of fake degrees or certificates.
The aviation authority had terminated the services of at least 39 workers on charges of fake degrees in 2016.
In 2014, as many as 300 PIA employees were sacked for having fake degrees, in compliance with the SC orders.
According to PIA, out of the 6,000 degrees of their employees that had been verified by various universities and institutions, 350 degrees were found fake.
LAWYERS’ FAKE DEGREES:
Later during the hearing, the chief justice took suo motu notice of lawyers holding fake degrees and sought a report on the issue from all bar councils within a month.
The apex court also issued a notice to the Higher Education Commission, directing the officials to cooperate with bar councils on the issue of degrees verification. The chief justice remarked that there were some lawyers who were practicing law without degrees while others were appearing in the court without licences.
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