LAHORE - Uncertainty prevails among staff and students of Aitchison College who are concerned about the office of Principal.
Dr Agha Gahazanfar, who was restored as the Principal by the Lahore High Court last week, will return from UK tomorrow. He will retake the office on Friday.
Dr Agha was removed by the Aitchison College Board of Governors (BOGs) last month for allegedly refusing admissions to scions of some influential families on kinship basis.
The BoGs appointed Aitchison Headmaster Ameer Hassan as the acting principal, who is now refusing to leave the charge, sources have told The Nation.
They say the acting principal has verbally instructed the security staff not to let the restored Principal, Agha Ghazanfar, enter the college premises.
The Aitchison College will re-open on August 31, while students and their parents have expressed concerns about the confusing situation.
“After LHC decision, Ameer Hassan should leave the Principal office and return all perks enjoying,” a teacher of the college told The Nation.
Besides his unnecessary defiance against the court verdict, the acting principal issued termination orders of Controller Examination Tariq Jamil, sources in college administration said.
Punjab Finance Minister Dr Aisha Ghaus Pasha, who is the head of Core Committee, intervened and stopped Hassan for taking such provocative actions against any employee of the college.
Tariq Jamil, along with Deputy Headmaster Prep School, Afzal Tarar, was conducting an inquiry against Ameer Hassan, who was the Headmaster when the admission test paper for Prep School was mysteriously leaked a few days before the exam.
The administration was forced to set a new paper just a day before the scheduled test, and Principal Dr Agha Ghazanfar had ordered an inquiry in June 2015.
“No action has so far been taken against the acting principal, who is involved in tempering the promotion examination of Prep School,” the sources added.
Instead of taking on the inquiry, the Board of Governors sacked Dr Agha Ghazanfar and appointed Ameer Hussain as acting principal.
Inquiry officers say they found a large number of discrepancies and tempering in Mathematics papers, which were of a crucial importance for the E2 promotion policy.
Due to such flaws, they had to call and question all the Mathematics teachers/examiners who had been involved in marking, posting and scrutinising the results.
Since there was enough evidence of unjustified and unauthorised temperance, the inquiry officers recommended a full-scale inquiry to be launched either by a committee from within the college or from any other neutral platform.
However, the inquiry is hanging in the balance after the sacking of Dr Agha Ghazanfar, who is supposed to reinitiate the probe against such irregularities.
Interestingly, scions of some of the most influential families of the country, including grandsons of Speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, were going to sit the test this year.
However, the children of these political leaders failed to get admission in the prestigious institution as they failed to obtain the required score - Sadiq’s grandson Ayan Sadiq scored 18.78 per cent while Gilani’s grandson Miran Mustafa Gilani obtained 40.22 per cent, much lower than the cutoff score to gain admission. Ameer Hussain could not be reached for comments.