ISLAMABAD: A Senate committee on Tuesday called upon the PIA management, which has dismissed 121 employees for possessing fake degrees, to be lenient towards the remaining staff under scrutiny for submitting forged academic records at the time of induction.The Senate Standing Committee on Aviation referred to the 12 employees who were allowed to retain their jobs in 2017.

`If PIA took a lenient view for some, its management should show similar compassion to all its employees and retain them.

Instead of laying them off, PIA has a category of minor punishment which can be handed down to employees possessing fake degrees, said committee chairman Senator Mushahidullah Khan of the PML-N.

At present, 377 disciplinary cases are pending against various classes of employees in the PIA for submitting fake or tampered with educational documents. Pilots, cabin crews and low ranking staff are among the 121 against whom final termination orders have been issued.

The committee met for the sixth time to discuss the issue of PIA employees who haverecently been dismissed from service. Most of the committee members have held that terminating staff from service was a drastic action.

The PIA management maintains that it is following Supreme Court orders to take necessary action against staff possessing fake academic records.

But members, especially the chairman, argued that the SC had not ordered sacking of the staff.

Air Vice Marshal Subhan Nazir Syed from the PIA informed the members that degrees were not verified until 2006. The verification process was launched when several cases of fake degrees started surfacing.

He informed the members that the 121 dismissed and 377 under-scrutiny employees had submitted fake degrees at the time of their induction. These employees failed tocomplete their education and submit genuine degrees in the two years grace period given by the previous management.

`Islamabad High Court (IHC) orders are clear that leniency cannot be extended to those who posses fake degrees,` said Mr Syed.

The committee learnt that the IHC had ordered earlier this year that the salaries drawn by the employees appointed on the basis of fake degrees should be recovered from them and the officers involved in granting such relaxation had clearly committed an offence under the law.

The committee was informed that the IHC in its direction had also said the authority, which had granted such a relaxation, had committed a serious criminal conduct which should be dealt with in accordance with the law.