Islamabad  - The Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) Vice Chancellor (VC) team has shown no-confidence on the bipartite committee head, urging the federal ministry to replace him because of his ‘biasness’ during the inquiry proceedings, The Nation learned on Thursday.

Sources informed The Nation that VC team has in written informed the secretary Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training Arshad Mirza expressing reservations on the proceedings of the committee formed under its official Joint Education Advisor (JEA) Prof Muhammad Rafique Tahir.

The members of VC Prof. Dr. Javed Ashraf team including Dr. Muhammad Shahab, Dr Khalid Khan, Dr. Sarwat Jehan and Dr. Zahid Ashgar were signatory of the letter while Dr. A.H.Toor was not in the country.

The VC team has alleged the committee head for ‘engineered delay’ in the fact-finding to favor the Academic Staff Association (ASA).

Sources said that the committee head has been accused for deliberately delaying the ‘10’ days work to five months and showing his ‘biasness’ by not restricting ASA members from disrespecting the sanctity of VC office.

According to the Terms of References (TORs) signed by VC Prof Dr. Javed Ashraf and President ASA Aqeel Bukhari, the committee was to resolve the crises of QAU within ten days.

The ministry had approved the VC’s request for leave for ten days, however the committee failed in addressing the problem and VC was given 21 days more leave.

According to the notifications available with The Nation VC was allowed to resume charge of his office after end of his leave. But, the ASA created rumpus at VC office and forced him to declare his residence as camp office for routine work.

The letter of reservation written to the secretary stated “Mr. Rafique Tahir has been changing the definition of the proceedings from one meeting to the next. In the very first meeting, he stated the day both sides submit their final documents, the proceedings will be declared to have ended.

At that point, the findings will be finalized only by the chairs and co-opted members. In the last meeting, however, the chair was of the view that the proceedings will be deemed to be continuing until such time as the chancellor signs the finding.

In the same meeting, he showed bias by supporting the ASA members against whom the VC had issued show-cause notices. Mr Rafique Tahir has not even once spoken against the illegal activities of ASA”.

Sources said that the ASA had demanded in its protest the VC Prof. Dr. Javed Ashraf to resign or to send him on forced leave for rest of his term.

“Practically ASA’s demand was met with the support of committee head as VC has not entered his office since the month of May and his term is going to end in October,” sources said.

The letter said that it was agreed between both parties that a list of allegations would be provided by each side which would be considered final, the ASA after getting the responses started modifying their allegations and Mr. Rafique Tahir allowed him to do so which led to the delay of the proceedings and VC remained dysfunctional.

“We feel that the engineered delays have served the cause of ASA of keeping the VC dysfunctional. This resulted in serious undermining of the administration and has weekend the institution. We request that in light of Mr. Rafique Tahir’s biases, he should be replaced as chair of the committee”. 

The documents with The Nation said that the VC QAU had also earlier expressed his reservations on the role of committee head to the former minister for education Baligh-ur-Rehman. However, no action was taken.

The minister was informed that Mr. Rafique Tahir in one of the syndicate meeting had strongly supported the promotion of ASA leader Dr. Asif Ali, who was later demoted after HEC wrote a letter saying that he did not meet the criteria to be full professor.

“An anonymous email was received shortly thereafter by all the syndicate members. The email stated that the two members of the syndicate who had supported Dr. Asif’s promotion in spite of not meeting HEC criteria were both from Chakwal. Dr. Asif is also from Chakwal,” said the document.

VC QAU Prof Dr. Javed Ashraf talking to The Nation said that he had resisted the notion of applying for leave till the finalization of proceedings of the committee, however the committee head had assured that it will finish the proceedings within 10 days.

JEA Rafique Tahir responding to The Nation said that expressing reservation on the committee is ‘their right’ meanwhile the proceedings of the committee will conclude in next ten days.

He also said that the VC team has still not provided the answers to the questions raised in the proceeding and no inquiry could be concluded without complete documentation and there are several documents which have not been provided to the committee.