Repercussion: Sacked teachers to move court against NCA administration

Say no employee with more than a year’s service can be terminated.

LAHORE: Six National College of Arts (NCA) teachers who say they have been fired illegally by the college’s administration decided on Sunday to move court after no reply was forthcoming from the principal’s office to their complaints.

The teachers, Hafsa Imtiaz, an assistant professor at Department of Architecture, Tauseef Zainul Abideen, an assistant professor at Department of Film and Television, Shahzad Manzur, an assistant professor at Department of Product Design, Abid Ahsan, a lecturer at Department of Film and Television, Zafar Iqbal, a lecturer at Department of Musicology and Muhammad Navid, a lecturer at Department of Ceramics Design, were stopped by administration from teaching classes following an office order stating that their contracts had expired.

The faculty, however, said the principal could not stop them from teaching as their cases for regularisation were pending with the Board of Governors (BoG).



“We received the orders on May 8 and filed a joint application to the principal on May 15…We informed the principal that all the [sacked] employees had been working for five to seven years and under a Cabinet Division’s decision [barring the college from firing any person who has served for more than a year] they couldn’t be fired,” said Abid Ahsan.

“We have so far received no response to the letter…a letter written by the heads of departments seeking our reinstatement too has not been answered,” he said.

“We have decided to take our case to the Lahore High Court (LHC). A petition will be filed this week,” he added.



Zafar Iqbal said it was a conflict between two schools of thoughts at the college which had resulted “in their termination.”

“There are two groups in the college – right-leaning and left-leaning. Those fired were vocal and weren’t liked by the administration,” he said.

“We are optimistic that the court will declare the administration’s decision null and void…those fired earlier were [also] reinstated by the court,” he said.

Advocate Salman Alam Khan, the teachers’ counsel, said he would file the petition this week.

“The acting principal cannot take such a decision…under the college’s rules, the faculty members whose cases are lying with BoG for regularisation cannot be fired.”

Khan said under a Cabinet Division decision, “no employee with more than one year service can be terminated by the college.”

“We will present these points before the honorable court,” he added.

Meanwhile, NCA Acting Principal Shabnam Khan said the new government would set its own policy. It was up to the Cabinet Division to take a decision in this regard, she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2013.