Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Nepotism and favouritism at the International Islamic University (IIU) Islamabad is on the rise as it appointed several key post officials while neglecting the fundamental and prescribed rules for these selections, Daily Times has learnt reliably.

According to the documents obtained by this correspondent, Muhammad Arshad Zia has been appointed as the Dean Faculty of Basic and Applied Sciences (FB&AS) on March 13. As per Section 2.2 of IIU statues, the candidate who desires for the slot of a Dean in any faculty should not be below the rank of a professor in the relevant discipline. “The Dean of each faculty shall be appointed by the Rector on the recommendation of the President from amongst the tree senior most professors in the faculty for a period of three years. If there is no professor in the faculty, the president of the university shall also look after the functions of the Dean in such a faculty”, reads the IIU statues.

The Selection Board of the varsity, promoted Arshad Zia as professor. Although, Arshad Zia had been included in the list of the IIU’s professors and was eligible to be the Dean FB&AS, his previous career remains challengeable.

According to per documentary evidences, a Selection Board in 2013 rejected the process to select Arshad Zia as Associate Professor. “A person who was rejected for the junior slot, very surprisingly has been appointed against a senior position”, commented an official on the condition of anonymity. The Rector of the University, Dr Masoom Yasinzai, says Arshad Zia was the only senior professor due to which the selection board appointed him as the Dean FB&AS.

Moreover, Arshad Zia’s PhD degree does not fulfil the basic requirements. He got a doctorate in the mathematics from the IIU in 2009.

The available information states that he submitted his thesis just after 11 months of the approval from the BASR while neglecting the rules and regulations. The legal duration for such a purpose is at least 24 months. Furthermore, he also had a shortage of total credit hours in his doctoral. According to the IIU and the HEC rules, the student of PhD should have 18 CH of course work for obtaining his doctoral. Whereas Arshad Zia, as per the available records, has a shortage of 6 CH course work.

When asked about the minimum and maximum set time duration for the PhD degree thesis, Dr.Yasinzai said: “Actually we used to count from the day of enrollment/registration of the student in the university”.

Arshad Zia is not the only candidate who was allegedly nepotised by the authorities. Available documents revealed that Muhammad Sajid also has been recommended as professor in the department of mathematics without taking into account the fundamental rules. As per documents, Sajid has no teaching experience. He was just a senior scientific officer at KRL Hospital. Besides the faculty side, the IIU administration also filed key administrative positions without reviewing the required criteria for the positions.

The documents stated that Dr. Aqdas Naveed Malik was appointed to the post of Vice President Higher Studies and Research and Dr. Munir was appointed to the post of Vice-President Administration, Finance and Planning. In January last year, the IIU advertised in the national press for the said couple of slots as being vacant. Both candidates, Dr.Malik and Dr.Munir were not fulling the requirements which have been asked in the published advertisement.

The Rector Dr.Yasinzai claimed that these were very responsible positions and after the advertisement it could not be found out who the reasonable candidate for such a purpose was. “So, we decided to choose Dr.Malik and Dr.Munir as they are both highly qualified persons”, he claimed. It is pertinent to mention that some of the above said cases already highlighted in Daily Times aftermath, the HEC also took notice and wrote a letter to the IIU administration.