Fighting chance: Sindh Varsity VC asks SHC to bar ACE from registering FIR

HYDERABAD: The Sindh University (SU) Vice Chancellor (VC) Prof Dr Fateh Muhammad Burfat, who is facing an inquiry initiated by Sindh Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE), has prayed the Sindh High Court to declare the inquiry unlawful and bar the ACE from registration an FIR against him or arrest him. The Hyderabad Circuit Bench on Tuesday put the respondents, including Sindh government through the chief secretary, ACE and ACE Deputy Director Zameer Abbassi on notice.

"The respondent [ACE] is directed not to take any coercive action against the petitioner till next date of hearing," the order reads. The matter was adjourned to December 11.

The VC is facing charges of making alleged illegal appointments, incurring expenditures above entitlement and wrongful allocation of budget for kickbacks, among other charges.

The petitioner contended that the ACE lacked the jurisdiction to issue the impugned notice of inquiry to the petitioner because his office does not fall under the definition of public servant as defined in Section 2 of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947. However, despite this assertion, Burfat said he was willing to cooperate and appear before the ACE for investigation in response to their November 5 notice which had summoned him and other officials to its Karachi office on November 8. He informed the court that in response to November 5 letter, he wrote to ACE to provide another date for hearing as the pre-entry test for undergraduate degree programmes, in which almost 24,000 candidates had appeared, was scheduled on November 11. He deplored that the request was ignored and he was not provided with the opportunity of hearing.

He complained that without hearing him, the ACE had 'unilaterally' recommended registration of FIR against him and other officials of the SU on November 18.

"The news was given to the media by the respondents in a defamatory and culpable manner, from which it transpires to every common man as if all the charges have been proved."

He pleaded innocence before the court and alleged that the ACE was acting on behalf of certain 'powerful forces'. "The whole drama is being made to remove the petitioner from his tenure post," he claimed, citing it as a violation of a Supreme Court's judgment.

Burfat contended that the manner in which investigation was being pursued was tantamount to harassment. He said that his reputation had been damaged by sharing the updates of the inquiry the news media.

He feared that he may be arrested and put to torture and prayed the court to order cancellation of the inquiry until ACE satisfied the court.

He also pleaded the court to declare that the notice of inquiry as beyond jurisdiction, illegal and mala fide, to quash the inquiry proceedings and set aside the impugned notice while also restraining ACE from registering an FIR against him.

Burfat joined the university as its VC on January 19, 2017.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2018.