Hold your horses : Peshawar High Court restrains private f irm from conducting AWKUM audit

Court told amendments to Universities Act 2012 do not have retrospective effect

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court restrained Deloitte, a chartered accountancy firm, conducting a performance audit of the Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan (AWKUM) on Wednesday.

The interim order to restrain the audit was issued by a divisional bench of Justice Musarat Hilali and Justice Younis Thaheem while hearing a petition filed by AWKUM through its registrar. In-charge legal cell Mian Saleem and treasurer Tariq appeared before the court.

Rehmanullah Shah, counsel for AWKUM, told the court that the university was established through Abdul Wali Khan University Ordinance 2009 which came into effect in 2010. He said the performance audit is carried out by Higher Education Commission Islamabad on an annual basis and the evaluation is published online.

“Ever since the university was established, regular audits were carried out by the relevant authorities and no financial deficit has been reported to date,” he said. “This audit is carried out under Section 38 of the K-P Universities Act 2012.”

Shah further told the court that under Article 169 and 170 of the Constitution, the auditor general of Pakistan has the authority to conduct an audit of accounts for the federal and provincial governments.

“The K-P government’s proposed amendments to the Universities Act 2012 and changes were consequently made to Section 38 in May whereby two provisions were added,” the petition reads. “On May 29, the HEC secretary asked AWKUM for a performance audit through Deloitte instead of the relevant authorities.”

According to the petition, K-P chief secretary and HEC secretary, through an agreement on March 12, engaged Deloitte to carry out a performance audit of public sector universities throughout the province prior to the amendments to the 2012 legislation.

Deloitte asked the university to provide some documents on June 2 for a performance audit from its date of establishment up until 2013. The petition claims amendments in Section 38 do not have a retrospective effect and an audit that revists the varsity’s performance ever since it came into being is illegal.

“The previous performance audit of AWKUM has been conducted by the audit department since the date of its establishment,” read the petition. “If the government has any concerns, it can ask for reports from the audit department.”

According to the university, an audit through a private firm cannot substitute a performance audit carried out by the relevant department.

AWKUM requested the court to declare the notification of May 29 illegal and direct the provincial government to act according to the law.

The court then restrained the performance audit to be carried out by Deloitte until September 3 and directed the chief secretary, secretary and HEC deputy director administration and Deloitte to submit written comments.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 27^th, 2015.