Illegal posting: University Act violated for Kohat University registrar

The post must be given to an officer of BPS-19.

PESHAWAR:

A civil servant on BPS-18 has been appointed as the registrar of Kohat University of Science and Technology (KUST), in violation of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) University Act 2012, people familiar with the matter told The Express Tribune.

According to the act, “the registrar shall be appointed by the syndicate, on recommendations of the selection board, or by deputation from amongst the officers or teachers in BPS-19.” However, Abdullah, who goes by the single name, is a BPS-18 officer and has been the registrar at KUST for the last two years.



“This is in clear violation of the act but no one bothers with it since he (Abdullah) is considered to be a favourite of Vice Chancellor Dr Nasir Khattak. I am not concerned with him (Abdullah) but with the rules and regulations,” said a KUST faculty member, requesting not to be named.

He said Abdullah had been a lecturer at the Social Work department of the university but was asked to take acting charge when former registrar Saleem Qasuri retired and his services were not extended upon orders of the apex court.

VC Khattak, however, told The Express Tribune that Abdullah is still the acting registrar at KUST and the appointment would be illegal if Abdullah had been made the permanent registrar. Khattak added that when he took over as the VC, he was contacted by the Chancellor’s office and asked to appoint another person with a lower rank, but he refused to do so.



“Since a complete set-up was not in place, we had to appoint someone. We could not run the university without filling the post, even if it meant appointing an acting registrar and not a permanent one,” he added.

The VC added that even after the University Act 2012 was promulgated, most universities faced problems and even they (KUST) could not hold a single meeting of the senate to appoint someone on the post. He added, however, that the chancellor will hold a meeting in the next few days and among other issues this will also be discussed.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 15^th, 2013.