Unfair removal: SU arts institute director moves SHC against sacking

Petitioner argued respondent had started a campaign against her when she was appointed

HYDERABAD: An Associate Professor of Sindh University's (SU) Institute of Arts and Design has challenged her removal from the post as the institute's director in Sindh High Court. The circuit bench in Hyderabad on Thursday issued notices to the respondents including Sindh Universities and Boards secretary, SU vice chancellor (VC), Associate Professor Saeed Ahmed Mangi and Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman to submit replies on January 17.

The petitioner, Associate Professor Waheeda Bano, contended that she was removed on September 26, 2018, from the post under pressure of Mangi and his alleged supporters in the syndicate. She claimed that since her appointment as the director on June 4, 2018, Mangi and others started a campaign to pressurise VC Dr Fateh Muhammad Burfat to remove her.

"Mangi was a contender for the same post but he lacks both relevant qualification and experience," she maintained. In May 2018, names of both Bano and Mangi were forwarded for consideration for the post. According to the university's Act, the chairman or director of an institute has to be appointed on recommendation of the VC by the syndicate among three most senior professors or associate professors.

The petitioner also challenged the legality of Mangi's appointment as Associate Professor in March 2018, raising the point that his earlier appointment as Assistant Professor in 2012 was illegal because he lacked relevant qualifications and the required experience.

The petitioner, on the other hand, was appointed in the same department as Research Associate in 2003, Lecturer in 2004, Assistant Professor in 2012 and Associate Professor in 2018. She requested the court to order her reinstatement on the three-year tenure post and reversion of Mangi to the post of Assistant Professor.

In a separate petition from the same department of SU, lecturer Erum Waheed Shaikh challenged the appointment of three assistant professors. According to her, the SU advertised one post of Assistant Professor in the Communication Design in April 2017. Four years' professional degree and six years of work experience were required for the post.

However, she claimed, three of her junior lecturers were appointed in March 2018, as assistant professors against one advertised post that too in violation of the experience requirement. Two of them had three years' and nine months' experience and the third one had two years and six months.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2018.