Alleged unlawful termination: ‘Sacked’ GCUF lecturers move court

Petitioners have accused university administration of unlawfully removing them from service.

FAISALABAD:

Additional Sessions Judge Naeem Saleem has sought a report by October 4 from the Government College University Faisalabad (GCUF) vice chancellor and registrar, the city police officer, the Operations SSP, the women’s police in charge, and the Gulberg and Jhang Bazaar station house officers on a petition filed by six woman lecturers.

GCUF lecturers Shakeela Khanum, Tayyaba Nighat, Ameer Sultana, Nasreen Siddiqi, Saima Rasheed and Shazia Bashir filed the petition on Saturday.

The petitioners have accused the university administration of unlawfully removing them from service and recruiting “influential” women instead. The petitioners also accused the police of harassment.

The petitioners said the VC had recruited his favourites to replace them. The recruitments, they said, had not been made on merit and were in violation of the university’s rules and regulations.

They said they had contacted the VC to ask him why they were terminated, but he did not listen to them.

They said when they staged a demonstration in front of the university on Thursday, the administration filed a false case against them at Gulberg police station under Sections 186, 148, 149 and 290 (obstructing a public servant in performance of his duties, rioting, unlawful assembly and public nuisance) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

They said police had then raided their homes and harassed them.  They said they had obtained pre-arrest bails.

They requested the court to restrain the police from harassing them and order the university administration to explain the reason for their termination.

Operations SSP Ghulam Mubashar Mekan told The Express Tribune that he had received a complaint from six female lecturers on Friday in which they claimed that the university had implicated them in a false case. They demanded that the case be discharged. They also complained against the VC and the Gulberg police, he said.

The SSP said that the case would be investigated and discharged only if found baseless.

The petitioners said they would continue to protest for their rights. They said they had been working for the university for over a decade and that their termination was a humiliation for them. They said they wanted an explanation from the university.

GCUF Registrar Muhammad Ayub denied the allegation. He said that the teachers’ protest was “uncalled for”.

He said these teachers had been working on an ad-hoc basis. He said the university had called applications for permanent teaching positions through media advertisements and selection board had recommend appointments on merit.

He said the new hiring had also been approved by the university syndicate. Denying the allegation that the protesting teachers were not given an explanation, he said members of the syndicate board had heard them in their 37th meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2013.