Judicial commission holds hearing on intermediate results

The former Punjab Higher Education Department Secretary and District Co-ordination Officer (DCO) Lahore, Ahad Cheema strongly defended former computerisation consultant Dr Majid Naeem allegedly responsible for the whole chaos, appeared before a judicial commission probing into loopholes in intermediate results here on Saturday.
While Lahore BISE acting-chairman Allah Bukhsh Malik said in his statement that Cheema being Secretary Higher Education Department (HED) was the hiring authority of Dr Naeem and they both were responsible of the turmoil In his statement, the DCO Cheema said Dr Naeem was an honest and hardworking officer and was not responsible for the incorrect results. He said the task given to Dr Naeem was only to provide computerised system which would be further utilised by employees concerned of all the eight boards. But, he said, the employees did not cooperate with the consultant and intentionally made the project failed.
Cheema pointed out that Dr Naeem successfully completed two previous results as there was not even 25 per cent fault. He said a mafia of handful employees at the education boards was behind the whole chaos and propaganda against the computerisation consultant.
When asked by the inquiry judge, Cheema maintained that the appointment of Dr Naeem was not based on political consideration. Later Lahore BISE acting-chairman Allah Bukhsh Malik said in his statement that board administration and employees fully co-operated with Dr Naeem and struggled to make the computerised system successful. But there were many flaws in the system/software.
The judge asked him whether the board officials brought the matter into the notice of government authorities. He replied that the authorities were informed verbally; however, no written complaint was lodged. At this the judge remarked: "Your minor mistake played havoc with the future of innocent students." Malik regretted and admitted that he committed a great mistake by not lodging the complaints in writing and in time. He was asked to file his written reply on next hearing.
Boards' suspended chairman Akram Kashmiri also spoke before the commission and said he was illegally suspended as he had no role in the matter. He said the system was enforced through incompetent persons who could not handle the matter. He said computerised system was better but the software introduced by Dr Naeem was defective.
He had been verbally conveying his reservations to the concerned authorities but no action was taken. Aslam Gujjar, president of BISE employees union, informed the commission that he had been pointing out the faults but always he was shown the door for pointing out the faults in system supervised by Naeem. He also presented result card of student Shehzad Ahmed s/o Akhtar Gull where he was shown failed but later proved that he passed the exam by securing 454 marks. Shehzad after knowing about his failure had committed suicide.
He also presented copy of a circular issued by HEC which said those hindering the process of computerisation of the system would be penalised under the rules. Some other officials of the Lahore board also informed the commission that Dr Naeem was given the task because of Ahad Cheema who had been giving him undue favours throughout the tenure.
BISE Controller Examination Anwar Farooq told the commission that in the result of 80,000 students was erroneous out of total 124,653 students. He said there were 21,770 mistakes in total 764,922 subjective papers. There were 143,934 mistakes in compilation of results of total 629,895 objective papers. He held responsibility of the matter on Naeem and his hiring authority.
Majid Naeem appearing before the commission said that he had not taken a penny for providing his services. He had been paying lacs of rupees to make the programme successful. At this Justice Shahid asked his NTN number and asked about his taxpaying details. Replying to the question, Naeem said he paid nothing this year as he had no income.