Regularisation allowed: ‘Principal can make employees permanent’

National College of Arts principal says Cabinet Division needs to approve committee’s recommendations.

LAHORE:

The committee, to review the National College of Arts Administrative Staff Association (NCA ASA) demands of regularisation of contract workers, in its findings on Monday concluded that the principal had the authority to give them (employees) career jobs. The findings were forwarded to Principal Sajjad Kausar on Monday.

But the principal says he still isn’t sure if he could change the status of employees on his own.

Talking to The Express Tribune, he said since the institute fell under the Cabinet Division, the findings of the committee could only be implemented once approved by the Cabinet Division.  He said the college administration will soon send the findings of the committee to the Cabinet Division. He, however, did not mention a tentative date. Kausar hoped for a prompt response by the Cabinet Division.

The NCA ASA executive body had called a two-day pen-down strike for June 14 and June 15, which was later called off after they were assured that a committee would be formed to look into their demands. The committee, comprising the college registrar, some teachers and the college’s legal adviser, was eventually formed on June 18. It held a meeting on June 22 to prepare its recommendations in this regard.

NCA ASA President Zahid Rafique Butt told The Tribune that the committee reviewed the college rules to examine if there was any provision that gave the principal the authority to make contract employees from grade 1 to grade 15 permanent. The ASA was told that the principal had the powers to do so, he said.

Butt said the committee based its findings on a previous Supreme Court ruling which stated that government employees be made permanent after 89 “continuous” days of service (without a leave).

He said of the 107 contract employees, 60 were serving from grades 1 to 15. The rest were above grade 16 and hence could not be entertained similarly, he said.

“Their fate lies in the hands of the Board of Governors and the Cabinet Division,” Butt said, adding that most of the contract workers above grade 16 belonged to the teaching staff.

“One thing is clear now. The regularisation of contract workers below grade 16 does not require approval from the Cabinet Division, contrary to what the college administration has been saying” he said.

Meanwhile, the NCA ASA asked all its members to continue working.

The issue surfaced last year after former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani announced regularisation of all NCA contract workers while addressing the college convocation.

Published In The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2012.