National College of Arts: Two of three candidates for principal face inquiries

Acting principal retires October 14, potential successors nominated.

LAHORE:

Two of the three professors nominated by National College of Arts (NCA) Acting Principal Sajjad Kausar to succeed him when he retires face inquiries over various matters at the college and at the National Accountability Bureau, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Professor Kausar is to retire on October 14. He has forwarded three names to the Cabinet Division. The prime minister is to select one of them to be the acting principal. The NCA hasn’t had a permanent principal since Nazish Ataullah retired in 2010.

Appointing a permanent principal requires the constitution of a search committee, consideration of applications and conducting interviews, a process which can take several months. The prime minister then makes the appointment. Since the post is to be free from October 14, and the prime minister is unlikely to stay in his office past March, an acting principal will most likely be appointed.

The names recommended by Prof Kausar are Shabnam Khan from the Textile Design Department and Anwar Saeed and Bashir Ahmed from the Fine Arts Department.

Documents available with The Express Tribune reveal that Khan and Saeed face inquiries at NAB (No 228/Complaint 7/4/2008) and at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat (FH-8IGR-1/2008-24/4). They are accused of for violating the rules by teaching at private institutions during official timings.

Khan also faces an inquiry at NCA for a delay in the publication of the college handbook for 2013. She also faces an audit objection for extending her PhD from four years to 10 years and for leaving the country without intimating the authority concerned that she was taking ex-Pakistan leave. She continued to receive her salary during the time she was abroad, state the documents.

Saeed is also a respondent in a case at the Lahore High Court regarding the NCA Journal Sohbet.

Senior NCA faculty members said that under the PEEDA Act, a person who was facing any internal or external inquiries could not be nominated for any administrative post.

Khan said that she was not aware of any inquiry against her in NAB or the PM’s Secretariat. “I have been implicated in many inquiries but I haven’t been intimated about them,” she said.

She said that let alone inquiries, the authorities did not even tell her when she was promoted while she was abroad doing her PhD. “I was promoted to associate professor in 2001 but the college didn’t inform me and I kept working as assistant professor till 2008,” she said.

She said that she taught at Beaconhouse National University as well as NCA and had permission to do so. “Pakistan lacks good teachers and I believe I am one,” she said, adding that she had a PhD with a distinction from Harvard University.

Khan said that she had been editing the handbook for the last few years, without pay. “I had to go to the USA. Two days after I took this job, a senior faculty member who does the publishing told me that he was scolded by the administration for not completing the handbook. I told him that I couldn’t complete the job in such a hurry. They may have initiated an inquiry against me for this,” she said.

Khan admitted that she had left the country without taking ex-Pakistan leave. “I did so because the then principal wasn’t allowing me to go to Harvard to complete my work there,” she said.

She said that 60 per cent of her salary was deducted each moth because she had continued receiving her salary when she was abroad. “I am in grade 21 but I don’t get a grade 21 salary,” she said.

Anwar Saeed said he hadn’t been teaching at any private school. He also said that he was not interested in becoming principal. “If my name has been forwarded it has been done without asking or informing me,” he added.

Prof Kausar declined to comment.

Zaki Hussain Naqvi, the section officer concerned at the Cabinet Division, confirmed that Prof Kausar’s nominations had been received. He said that they would be forwarded to the prime minister, who would then pick an acting principal.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 12^th, 2012.